DUSHANBE, April 10, 2013, Asia-Plus — The first session of the Military Committee of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is taking place in Moscow today.
The meeting participants include chiefs of general staffs of the armed forces of the CSTO member nations.
According to the CSTO Secretariat, the session is reviewing the progress in fulfilling the major goals of military cooperation of the CSTO member states for the period until 2020, air defense integration and development of collective security.
The Military Committee is also expected to study draft documents to be later discussed at the regular session of the Council of Defense Ministers of the CSTO in Bishkek at the end of May.
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 that suspended its membership in 1999 returned to the CSTO again in 2006 after it came under international criticism for its brutal crackdown of antigovernment demonstrations in the eastern city of Andijon in May 2005. On June 28, 2012, Uzbekistan announced that it has suspended its membership of the CSTO, saying the organization ignores Uzbekistan and does not consider its views. The CSTO is currently an observer organization at the United Nations General Assembly.
