NATO’s military build-up on the territory of neighboring countries creates threats to Belarus and Russia and impacts security of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), CSTO Secretary-General Stanislav Zas said at the Valdai international discussion club on Wednesday.
"NATO is substantially building up its forces on the western borders of the zone of the CSTO’s responsibility and developing military infrastructure on adjacent territories," he said. - "Military activity is increasing and militarization of the whole region is actually underway. This creates threats not only to Belarus and Russia but adversely affects the provision of security of our entire organization, the CSTO".
"I have the audacity to state this on behalf of the entire organization because this is what is written in the CSTO’s development strategy through 2025," Zas added.
According to him, those Russian initiatives and those complex talks on security, which Moscow is holding with Western partners, correspond to the interests of the CSTO.
Crisis response group
Zas said the crisis response working group was created within the CSTO after the peacekeeping operation in Kazakhstan.
"Yes, of course, we have now created a working group and we are carefully studying this first practical experience of ours, all our actions. We will test first of all the crisis response system. We need to be able to apply the available capabilities quickly and effectively in any conditions and anywhere in our area of responsibility," he said.
According to the secretary-general, the operation in Kazakhstan demonstrated the effectiveness of the existing mechanisms. "We gained the first practical experience and became sure that the forces and means, which are in our organization, as well as the mechanisms of their use, which were established during 20 years, really work and allow solving the tasks, which our organization faces," he specified.
"This peacekeeping operation has really contributed to the breakthrough and stabilization of the situation in Kazakhstan. The cessation of bloodshed, terrorist attacks, that is, it has really helped," Zas added.
Protests grew into riots in Mangistau oblast and several other cities on January 2. Their participants attacked police and military personnel. The president of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, declared an attempted coup d'etat. By January 7 the situation was stabilized, on January 19 the state of emergency was lifted across the country. According to authorities, 225 people were killed and more than 4,500 were injured as a result of those events.
Unified list of terrorist organisations
According to Zas, the situation with the creation of a unified list of terrorist organizations in the CSTO is currently stalled.
"Yes, such a task has been set, and we have developed a mechanism for recognizing organizations as terrorist organizations and compiling such a list within the CSTO," he said. - But now the situation is, shall we say, at a standstill. We have four countries that have their own lists of terrorist organizations, they partially coincide, correlate on the four organizations. There are countries where the legal field just hasn't been created yet to connect to that list."
The idea of creating a single list of terrorist organizations was put forward in 2018.
CSTO Expansion
Zas said the issue of CSTO expansion should be considered cautiously so as not to dilute the unity of the organization.
"Consideration of CSTO enlargement should be treated very carefully and very cautiously. We are an open organization and we welcome interaction both with international structures and with other countries which share our approaches and principles of activity. But membership in the organization is a very serious issue; it [should be] considered very carefully, so as not to dilute our unity, our cohesion. It is very important that we actually be an effective organization," he said.
The CSTO is an international security organization that currently has six member states: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
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Based on materials from TASS