Heads of state of Collective Security Treaty member-countries to meet in Moscow

The heads of state of the member-countries of the Collective Security Treaty on Tuesday will hold the tenth, jubilee, session of the Treaty's highest political body - the Collective Security Council. The Presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Russia and Tajikistan will sum up the main results of the Treaty's activity in the past ten years, will determine the tasks for the future and the trends of the further military and political integration of the Treaty's members. The main attention will be paid to the transformation of the Treaty into an international regional organisation, to the creation of an inter-state military control body, to the expansion of military and technological cooperation and to coordination in the sphere of foreign policy. This agenda of the session was unanimously supported at a Monday joint session of the Treaty's Foreign and Defence Ministers. They took a decision to submit for the Presidents' approval the issue of giving the Treaty a status of an international regional organisation and of creating a single military-staff body on the basis of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces headed by Chief of the Russian General Staff Anatoly Kvashnin. Being exclusively defensive, the Treaty serves as a basis for creating similar regional structures, within the framework of common collective security, in the East-European (Russia-Belarus), Caucasian (Russia-Armenia) and Central Asian (Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) directions with ensuring their compatibility and cooperation. The collective rapid deployment forces, which have been formed by Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, have already proved their ability to function and become an appreciable factor in ensuring stability in the Central Asian region. The ten-year history of the Treaty shows that it is necessary for ensuring the security of its members. Speaking at the session of the Council of Foreign and Defence Ministers, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Igor Ivanov underscored that in questions of regulating its relations with NATO, Russia intended to uphold also the interests of its partners in the Collective Security Treaty. As RIA Novosti was told by the Treaty's Secretary General Valery Nikolayenko, the Treaty will become an organisation "which would adequately and automatically react to new challenges and threats of our time, which is the goal of Russian President Vladimir Putin."