CSTO CONTINUES TO DEVELOP AS MILITARY-POLITICAL ORGANIZATION
RIA Novosti, Russia
November 10, 2004
MOSCOW, November 10 (RIA Novosti) – “After the Collective Security
Session in Astana in June 2004, the CSTO has continued to dynamically
develop as a military-political organization,” Foreign Ministry
spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
“The unanimous approval of a draft resolution granting the CSTO
observer status at the UN General Assembly during the UN General
Assembly 6th committee session is evidence of the CSTO’s growing
prestige as an international regional organization.”
In the run-up to the regular CSTO Council of Foreign Ministers meeting,
Mr. Yakovenko said the CSTO was a multifunctional military-political
integration structure that included Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. The purpose of the CSTO is to
develop a system of collective security capable of effectively reacting
to any possible threats to national security of the organization’s
members.
“The questions of responding to new threats and challenges – terrorism
and other violent manifestations of extremism, drugs trafficking,
illegal migration, organized crime, etc. – take an increasingly
prominent position within the CSTO,” he said. “The CSTO Committee of
Security Council Secretaries coordinates the CSTO’s work in this area.”
“The Central Asian Collective Rapid Deployment Forces, which was
created in 2001 and comprises troops from Russia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, played an important role in curtailing
Islamic extremist terrorist groups’ activity in Central Asia,” he
said. “Since it was founded, the forces have become an important, or
even decisive, factor in ensuring peace and stability in Central Asia.”