The Council of Defence Ministers of the member-countries of the Collective Security Treaty to meet in Moscow

The Council of the Defence Ministers of the member-countries of the Collective Security Treaty will meet in Moscow on Wednesday. As the secretariat of the Treaty reported, at this session the Defence Ministers will discuss "the military component in carrying out ant-terrorist operations and issues connected with the development of the military infrastructure in regional directions of the collective rapid deployment forces of the Collective Security Treaty. There are three such directions within the framework of the Treaty - East European (Russia - Belarus), Caucasian (Russia - Armenia) and Central Asian (Russia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia and Tajikistan). A special multilateral agreement is being drafted on this score, pointed out the Treaty's secretariat.

The session participants will also consider issues of military and technical cooperation "in the context of the joint production and working out of military equipment and its repairs, as well as the proposals by the chiefs of staffs committee to set up a military-staff body of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation." It is envisaged that the Council will adopt a promising plan for the development of the Treaty's rapid deployment forces up to 2005 and will consider questions of enhancing the fulfilment of the Agreement on the Basic Principles of Military Cooperation in accordance with which the Treaty's member-countries are cooperating in the military and technical spheres on privileged terms, pointed out the secretariat.