CIS SECURITY BODY NEEDS TO RESOLVE INTERNAL PROBLEMS – RUSSIAN MP
Interfax-AVN military news agency web site
30 Apr 04
MOSCOW
Member-states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)
should work out an efficient mechanism of enforcing mutual commitments
in the military sphere, Viktor Zavarzin, chairman of the State Duma
Defence Committee, said today.
“All CSTO member-states (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Russia and Tajikistan) should develop their own mechanisms for
enforcing military-technical cooperation agreements that have been
reached. Legislation, regulating such a mechanism, has not been
developed yet because of domestic interdepartmental differences,”
Zavarzin told Interfax-Military News Agency.
Zavarzin emphasized that CSTO member-states have not shown the proper
interest in armament modernization and overhaul programmes proposed by
Russia within the framework of the Intergovernmental
Military-Technical Cooperation Commission.
As a positive example of cooperation within the CSTO framework he
cited cooperation, pertaining to CSTO infrastructure security
(railways, airlines, pipelines, sea routes, largest power plants,
etc.), which directly influences all the national security components
of each member-state. “For instance, this January the Russian
president submitted the bill “On ratifying the agreement on
establishing a single protection system for the railways of CSTO
member states” to the State Duma for consideration. The agreement
coordinates joint planning in this sphere,” he noted.
Zavarzin said that, on the whole, there were a number of serious
problems and difficulties in each CSTO workstream. Should such
problems be solved, the organization could achieve a qualitatively new
level of cooperation, and enforce decisions, meeting the challenges of
the contemporary military-political environment in CSTO member
states. It is also necessary to refine policy pertaining to
contemporary challenges and threats, Zavarzin said. He added that one
of the priorities consisted in establishing contacts between CSTO and
UN, and CSTO and OSCE. “The organization may also coordinate its
efforts with NATO in the future, first and foremost, in the sphere of
combating terrorism, religious extremism and drug trafficking,” he
said. (Passage omitted)