DUSHANBE, April 11, Asia-Plus – Interfax – “The presence of international coalition in Afghanistan is profitable for member nations of the Collective Security Treaty Organization,” the head of a post-Soviet security group said at a meeting with students at Belarus National University in Minsk Tuesday.  

“If NATO, the United States leave Afghanistan, we will be faced with the Taliban threat,” Nikolai Bordyuzha, General Secretary of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, said, delivering a statement at Belarus National University in Minsk.

            According to him, Afghanistan today is an ideological  injection for different extremist organizations.  In this connection, Bordyuzha holds that military base of the antiterrorist coalition in Kyrgyzstan and airport used by it in Tajikistan should function.  He reminded that those bases had been set up after appropriate consultations within the framework of the CSTO.     

The CSTO members are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, and they use the organization as a platform for fighting drug trafficking, terrorism, and organized crime, and have pledged to provide immediate military assistance to each other in the event of an attack. 

Two CSTO members, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, share borders common borders with Afghanistan.