DUSHANBE, April 2, 2014, Asia-Plus — A meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Foreign Ministers’ Council has opened in Dushanbe.
The meeting has brought together foreign ministers of Tajikistan (Sirojiddin Aslov), Armenia (Edvard Nalbaldyan), Belarus (Vladimir Makey), Kazakhstan (Erlan Idrisov), Kyrgyzstan (Erlan Abdyldayev), and Russia (Sergey Lavrov) to review modern problems of international policy and measures to address modern challenges and threats.
The meeting will also discuss a draft Statement of CSTO Foreign Ministers on the 70th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
As Dushanbe chairs the organization in 2015, the meeting is being chaired by Tajik Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Aslov.
CSTO Secretary-General Nikolay Bordyuzha is also participating in the meeting. He will deliver a statement on the current situation in the CSTO area of responsibility (AoR) and in neighboring regions.
Besides, the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic, the OSCE Conflict Prevention Center Director Adam Koberatsky and the United Nations Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA) Head Miroslav Jenca have been invited to attend the meeting, the source said.
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.
