Tajik President Emomali Rahmon will participate in a session of the Collective Security Council of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) that will take place in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, on November 30.
The Collective Security Council comprises the heads of state of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.
While in Minsk, Tajik leader is also scheduled to hold a number of bilateral meetings.
The CSTO Secretariat says more than twenty issue shave been tabled to the agenda of the Collective Security Council session that will be held in a restricted format in a form of plenary session.
CSTO Secretary-General Yuri Khachaturov will participate in the session that will be chaired by the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
The session will discuss the development trends of the international situation and the measures taken to strengthen the collective security of the Organization.
The CSTO heads of state are reportedly expected to adopt the CSTO Declaration on the 25th anniversary of the Collective Security Treaty and the 15th anniversary of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.
The session participants will also discuss the draft decision on the implementation of the CSTO collective security strategy Organization through 2025, according to the CSTO Secretariat.
The session will discuss the ways of improving the military component of the Organization, the structure of the CSTO Secretariat and the Joint Staff, distribution of quotas for the posts in the Joint Staff and the CSTO budget for 2018.
The session participants are expected to sign a set of documents and resolutions related to cooperation in information security, the measures to combat illegal migration, the emblem and the flag of the Organization, the heraldic sign of the forces and means of collective security.
CSTO Collective Security Council will sum up the results of Belarus chairmanship and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev will voice his country’s position on the priorities of work during Kazakhstan’s rotating presidency in the Organization.
The session will be preceded by a joint meeting of the CSTO Council of Foreign Ministers, the Council of Defense Ministers and the Committee of Secretaries of the Security Councils.
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.
