KHUJAND, April 26, 2010, Asia-Plus — An anti-terror drill for the Collective Security Treaty Organization’s (CSTO) Central Asian group, dubbed Rubezh-2010 (Frontier-2001), closed on April 26 with a final phase at the Chorukh-Dayron training grounds in Sughd province featuring live-fire missions.
The source at the Tajik Ministry of Defense (MoD) says the exercise’s final phase involved military personnel from Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia..
The exercise that was launched April 22 was conducted in three stages; the first two stages included development of a joint ant-terror operation on blocking and annihilating illegal militant groups. Tajik Minister of Defense, Colonel-General Sherali Khairulloyev, was in overall command of the ongoing war game.
The purpose of the exercise was to rehearse coordination and interaction in anti-terror missions conducted in mountain and desert areas. The exercise scenario was based on blocking and annihilating an armed group of terrorists, numbering 120 persons, which penetrated into Tajikistan and evacuating local residents from the operation area.
CSTO is the regional security organization that 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; the treaty was signed by the presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. In October 2002, the group was renamed as the CSTO. Uzbekistan became a full participant of the organization on June 23, 2006. The CSTO holds yearly military command exercises for the CSTO nations to have an opportunity to improve inter-organization cooperation. The CSTO is an observer organization at the United Nations General Assembly.
The organization now groups Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
