DUSHANBE, September 10, 2015, Asia-Plus -- Foreign and defense ministers of the member nations of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) will meet in Dushanbe next week ahead of a session of the CSTO Council of Heads of State that will take place in the Tajik capital on September 15, an official source in the Tajik government told Asia-Plus today morning.   

“A joint meeting of the CSTO foreign and defense ministers will be held here on September 14 and they will discuss coordination of efforts of the CSTO member nations to provide regional security,” the source said.

According to him, the CSTO summit will focus on issues related to the situation in the Middle East and providing regional security in Central Asia.     

The source noted that Tajikistan would hand over the rotating presidency of the organization to Armenia next year.

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.