DUSHANBE, July 14, 2011, Asia-Plus -- Visiting Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Nikolai Bordyuzha yesterday met here with heads of the Ministries of Defense and Interior and State Committee for National Security (SCNS) as well as Deputy Secretary of Tajikistan’s Security Council.

Faridoun Mahmadaliyev, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense (MoD), says issues related to providing regional security, military and military-technical cooperation between the CSTO member nations as well as expansion of cooperation in combating international terrorism, religious extremism, transnational crime and trafficking in drugs and weapons were among major topics of the talks.  The sides reportedly also discussed the current situation in Afghanistan and the Central Asian region.

Nikolai Bordyuzha arrived in Tajikistan for a four-day working visit yesterday.  During his stay in Tajikistan, the CSTO secretary general is also scheduled to visit a number of military units of Tajik MoD in order to get acquainted with conditions of military service and the level of their operational readiness, the source said.

CSTO is the regional security organization that was initially formed in 1992 for a five-year period by the members of the CIS Collective Security Treaty (CST) -- Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, which were joined by Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Belarus the following year.  A 1994 treaty "reaffirmed the desire of all participating states to abstain from the use or threat of force," and prevented signatories from joining any other military alliances or other groups of states directed against members states. The CST was then extended for another five-year term in April 1999; the treaty was signed by the presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.  In October 2002, the group was renamed as the CSTO.  Uzbekistan became a full participant of the organization on June 23, 2006.  The CSTO holds yearly military command exercises for the CSTO nations to have an opportunity to improve inter-organization cooperation.  The CSTO is an observer organization at the United Nations General Assembly.

The organization now groups Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.