DUSHANBE, September 17, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- An operational group of the Ministry of Defense (MoD) led by the deputy chief of the MoD general staff, Major-General Zarif Bobokalonov, has departed for Minsk, Belarus to take part in the second stage of the rapid reaction exercises of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) that will start there on September 19.

The source at a MoD says the second stage of the CCTO rapid reaction exercises that runs through September 29 concerns organization of use of military contingents of the CSTO member nations in the East European region of the collective security.

We will recall that a military exercise began in Moscow on August 26, marking the first official testing of the new Collective Operational Reaction Forces (CORF) created within the framework of the CSTO.  The initial phase in Moscow that was held on August 26-28 involved command-staff planning linked to the military-political aspects of coalition interaction.  The military units will also join the third stage that will be held in Kazakhstan in October.