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CIS Collective security treaty organization holds summit

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  • CIS Collective security treaty organization holds summit

    Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
    The Jamestown Foundation
    June 24 2005

    CIS COLLECTIVE SECURITY TREATY ORGANIZATION HOLDS SUMMIT

    By Vladimir Socor

    Friday, June 24, 2005



    Putin and Belarusian President Lukashenko at the CIS CSTO meeting. On
    June 22-23, Moscow hosted a meeting of the heads of state of the CIS
    Collective Security Treaty Organization (Russia, Belarus, Armenia,
    Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan) and concurrent meetings of the
    CSTO countries' ministers of foreign affairs, defense ministers, and
    secretaries of the national security councils.

    The meetings approved a framework plan on CSTO development in two
    stages -- through 2010 and beyond -- as well as plans to upgrade the
    Collective Rapid Deployment Forces in Central Asia and to create an
    inter-state commission for handling deliveries and servicing of
    military equipment at preferential prices. These measures have been
    on the agenda for several years but hardly showed any results.

    Far more significantly, this summit decided to separate the CIS Joint
    Air Defense System (nominally of ten countries) from that of the
    CSTO's planned United Air Defense System (six member countries). The
    Joint System consists of forces under national command, exercising
    periodically under coordination from a center in Russia, and regards
    each country's airspace as distinct and sovereign. The planned United
    System consists of forces under a single -- that is, Russian --
    planning system and command, and it only recognizes a single CSTO
    airspace. Russian officials explained the need for separating the two
    systems by noting that certain CIS countries are not CSTO members and
    aspire to join NATO.

    Russian officials moved unobtrusively but unmistakably to exploit
    American discomfiture over Uzbekistan. Thus, Minister of Foreign
    Affairs Sergei Lavrov, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, Security
    Council Secretary Igor Ivanov, and CSTO Secretary-General Nikolai
    Bordyuzha all characterized the recent "events" in Andijan
    unambiguously as an assault by international terrorism and radical
    Islam against Uzbekistan. Citing international obligations to assist
    states under terrorist attack, they announced Russia's support for
    the Uzbek leadership's efforts to stabilize the situation in Andijan
    and throughout the country. These statements form part of an
    intensifying exchange of political overtures between Moscow and
    Tashkent in the wake of the Andijan rebellion, which by the same
    token has deepened the misunderstandings between Tashkent and
    Washington.

    With President Vladimir Putin joining in, those same Russian
    officials criticized the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan for
    failing to suppress "terrorist training bases, including those
    supported by certain intelligence services" (Putin) and for
    tolerating the booming export of Afghan heroin to Russia and Europe.
    Rating the coalition's efforts as "very ineffective thus far," Putin
    and other Russian officials hinted that the CSTO is prepared to
    consider stepping in. The meeting discussed possible measures to
    increase and coordinate assistance to Afghanistan, as well as setting
    up "a working group to coordinate with Afghan structures" and a joint
    anti-drug authority.

    Kyrgyzstan's post-revolution defense minister, Ismail Isakov, was
    authorized by the defense ministers' session to tell the press that
    the creation of a second Russian military base in Kyrgyzstan is
    intended. It will, apparently, carry a CSTO label. The CSTO's
    Russian-led military staff has been tasked to determine the possible
    missions, troop level, and armament of such a base, and whether it
    should be designated as temporary or permanent. Another
    post-revolution leader, Felix Kulov, had publicly called last month
    for the deployment of a second Russian military base in Kyrgyzstan,
    to be located in Osh.

    By contrast, Kazakhstan opposed a Russian initiative -- presumably
    supported by others -- to create a joint standing conventional
    military force for Central Asia within the CSTO's framework. Kazakh
    Defense Minister General Mukhtar Altynbayev told the press, "Creating
    a cumbersome force for permanent stationing would be worthless." Due
    to Kazakhstan's position, further discussion of this issue was
    deferred until the next meeting some months from now (Interfax, June
    23).

    In the session of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, certain countries
    that were not publicly identified successfully resisted proposals on
    financing the CSTO. One defeated proposal would have collected
    long-overdue contributions from Central Asian member countries to the
    CSTO's budget from the years 1996-2003. Another, more topical measure
    that was defeated would have required member countries to co-finance
    the development of command-and-control systems for the Collective
    Rapid Deployment Forces in Central Asia. The only financial issues
    that appeared to be resolved would increase salaries of CSTO
    Secretariat personnel by 20% -- provided that the extra funding is
    taken out of other items of the CSTO budget, so as to avoid a net
    increase.

    Loyalists had their day, however. Armenian President Robert Kocharian
    professed to find comfort "in the CSTO's lineup, one in which we do
    not disagree among ourselves, but strive for practical results"
    (Interfax, June 23). Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenka
    praised the CSTO as one of the centers of power that provide
    counterweights to the "unipolar dictatorship of a single super-power"
    [the United States]. Igor Ivanov rewarded his ally by denouncing "the
    external forces' threats of interference in Belarus, where they are
    trying to impose political decisions. We reject this kind of actions"
    (RIA, June 22).

    For the first time in the CSTO's history, the Russian military now
    plans to hold joint ground-force exercises in the organization's
    "western region" and "southern region" -- that is, in Belarus and in
    Armenia. These exercises are scheduled to be held on the
    command-and-staff level in 2006. Thus far, the CSTO has only held
    joint ground-force and combined exercises in its Central Asian
    region.

    At this summit, Putin took over the chairmanship of the Collective
    Security Council (the top political authority of the CSTO) from
    Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev. That and other CSTO posts
    are supposed to rotate annually in the Russian alphabetical order of
    the member countries' names. In this case, Kyrgyzstan was
    unceremoniously skipped. Next year, moreover, the CSTO summit will be
    held in Belarus, and the honor of chairing the organization will
    devolve to Lukashenka.
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