DUSHANBE, April 4, 2014, Asia-Plus — Presided over by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Foreign Ministers’ Council took place in Moscow on April 3.
The meeting reportedly focused on the situation in the CSTO area of responsibility.
The meeting participants considered it expedient to intensify work on establishing thorough cooperation with the Shanghai Cooperation and expanding contacts with Afghanistan’s leadership both at the national level and at the level of border areas.
The CSTO foreign ministers made statements regarding the aggravation in northwest Syria and on Afghanistan ahead of the presidential election scheduled for April 5.
They are also approved a plan for holding consultations on foreign political cooperation, security and defense relations.
The CSTO foreign ministers also signed a number of the previously agreed instruments.
The CSTO Foreign Ministers Council is a charter body of the organization which holds sessions twice a year: in the run-up to a session of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (the end of the calendar year) and in between sessions (second quarter). The meeting of the council in between sessions is organized in the state which holds the CSTO chairmanship.
The regional security organization was initially set up in 1992 in a meeting in Tashkent and Uzbekistan once already suspended its membership in 1999. However, Tashkent returned to the CSTO again in 2006 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.
