MOSCOW, May 14 (Itar-Tass) —— The Declaration of heads of member countries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (SCTO) will be adopted on Tuesday, May 15, after the Organization’s summit in the Kremlin, a spokesman for the Russian president’s administration, told Itar-Tass.
“The declaration contains the collective appraisal of the main tendencies of the international situation’s development, of the CSTO activities, reiterates adherence to the aims and principles of the Collective Security Treaty, the readiness to develop and deepen allied relations in the foreign policy, military and military-technical areas, in opposing transnational challenges and threats to security and stability,” the spokesman said, noting that the summit is held on the day of the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Collective Security Treaty. Ten years since then, on May 14, 2002, the Collective Security Treaty Organization was established for the strengthening and institutionalization of allied relations that have reached a qualitatively new level of military and political integration.
The session of the CSTO Collective Security Council will be the first major international summit for its host, Vladimir Putin who was inaugurated as President of Russia on May 7. The presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are expected to participate in the session. Meanwhile these are not the first international contacts of the new head of the Russian state – he had meetings with the presidents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia last week. Another international meeting, an informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States, will be held after the CSTO session.
“The session of the CSTO Collective Security Council will focus on the topical problems of the present-day international situation and on further joint steps to oppose global and regional challenges and threats to security of the Organization’s member states,” the Kremlin spokesman said. “The session will discuss the main results of the CSTO activities over the decade of its existence in which it developed into the main instrument of maintaining collective security in the zone of its responsibility, reacting adequately to wide-ranging contemporary challenges and threats,” the spokesman noted.
Among the main priorities of the Organization are matters of perfecting the collective security system, optimizing the military and military-technical cooperation, increasing coordination of the foreign policy activity of the CSTO member states.
The summit of the heads of states is also expected to make the decision to institute the badge of honor of the Collective Security Treaty Organization “as an award to statesmen and politicians for major contribution to the strengthening of collective security, maintenance of international peace and stability and development of cooperation among CSTO member states,” the Kremlin representative said.