DUSHANBE, May 4, 2015, Asia-Plus -- The next meeting of the Coordinating Council of Heads of the Standing Committees for Defense and Security of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member nations at the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly Council will take place in Dushanbe from May 26-27.

Jourakhon Majidzoda, the head of the Majlisi Namoyandagon (Tajikistan’s lower house of parliament) Committee for Defense and Security, says the meeting participants will discuss a number of draft model laws and visit the Russian military base deployed in Tajikistan and the Tajik-Afghan border.    

The regional security organization was initially set up in 1992 in a meeting in Tashkent and Uzbekistan once already suspended its membership in 1999.  However, Tashkent returned to the CSTO again in 2006 The regional security organization 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, and was signed by the presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.  In October 2002, the group was renamed as the CSTO.  Uzbekistan that suspended its membership in 1999 returned to the CSTO again in 2006 after it came under international criticism for its brutal crackdown of antigovernment demonstrations in the eastern city of Andijon in May 2005.  On June 28, 2012, Uzbekistan announced that it has suspended its membership of the CSTO, saying the organization ignores Uzbekistan and does not consider its views.  The CSTO is currently an observer organization at the United Nations General Assembly.