DUSHANBE, March 6, 2014, Asia-Plus – Members of the Military Committee set up at the Council of Defense Ministers of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) have discussed the establishment of a common air and missile defense system.
A session of the CSTO Military Committee, presided over by First Deputy Minister of Defense of Russia also Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia, Valery Gerasimov, was held in Moscow on March 5.
First Deputy Minister of Defense of Tajikistan, Major-General Zarif Bobokalonov, who is also Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Tajikistan, represented Tajikistan at the meeting.
According to the CSTO press center, the meeting participants discussed the military and political situation and its possible developments, challenges and threats in the collective security zone, the development of the military dimension of the Organization and joint events related to operational and combat training in 2014.
They also discussed the establishment of the common system of air and missile defense and the combat readiness of the Collective Rapid Reaction Forces, as well as the preparation for the sessions of the CSTO charter bodies scheduled for April.
The CSTO agreed to form the Rapid Reaction Forces, a permanent combat-ready component for crisis response, in February 2009.
The CSTO Military Committee members include chiefs of general staffs of the armed forces of the CSTO member nations.
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.
