DUSHANBE, September 22, 2009, Asia-Plus — The Committee of the Security Council Secretaries from member nations of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) will hold a meeting in Brest, Belarus on September 30, according to the CSTO Secretariat.
The meeting aims to discuss the military and political situation within the CSTO area, practical measures to form the coordinated information policy within the Organization as well as a number of other issues related to further development of the CSTO.
The fight against drug trafficking will be also a hot topic of the meeting. A report on joint measures to address the drug threat emanating from outside and the process of implementation of the plan of actions on collective combating illicit drug trafficking for 2008-2011 will be presented at the meeting in Brest, the CSTO Secretariat said.
The CSTO now groups Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The regional security organization was initially formed in 1992 for a five-year period by the members of the CIS Collective Security Treaty (CST) — Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, which were joined by Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Belarus the following year. A 1994 treaty reaffirmed the desire of all participating states to abstain from the use or threat of force, and prevented signatories from joining any “other military alliances or other groups of states directed against members states. The CST was then extended for another five-year term in April 1999, and was signed by the presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. In October 2002, the group was renamed as the CSTO. Uzbekistan joined the Organization in 2006.
