The Collective Security Treaty Organization, which is the Moscow-led security alliance of former-Soviet republics, has proved its value in the course of 15 years since its establishment, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, TASS reports.
“Such organization as the CSTO definitely proved its effectiveness,” Putin said in an interview with Mir 24 television channel.
The Collective Security Treaty was signed in 1992 and the organization itself was set up 10 years later. The CSTO, which is comprised of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, regularly holds military drills on the territories of its member states.
“Russia is vitally interested in the stability on the post-Soviet area,” Putin said. “The less the number of threats emerging from various directions for Russia and the more our joint actions are effective – the better.”
The Russian president reiterated that it must not be forgotten about other threats such as terrorism, organized crime and drugs trafficking, which have no borders.
“The effective way to fight against such threats, including for us, is to join efforts,” he said. “We proposed to join efforts on the global scale. You do know that I voiced this proposal addressing the United Nations.”
“In any case, considering the regional scale, we are capable of it (fighting threats) and as it had been proved, we are capable of doing it quite effectively,” the Russian leader stated.
The president stressed that the upcoming 15th anniversary of the CSTO “provides us with an opportunity to look back in the past and assess everything that had been done in this sphere.”
“To make an unbiased assessment, to introduce corrections if necessary, to tighten coordination efforts, to strengthen the regulatory framework,” Putin said. “On the whole, I am deeply convinced that cooperation in the security sphere is a priority both for us and our partners and is of the benefit for all members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.”