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CSTO, OSCE heads call to develop cooperation between organizations

They are ready to pool efforts in ensuring security in the Eurasian space

MOSCOW, October 25 (Itar-Tass) — The general secretaries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Nikolai Bordyuzha and Lamberto Zannier, find it necessary to develop the cooperation between the two organizations to increase the level of security in the region of their responsibility. Bordyuzha and Zannier have made a statement at their bilateral meeting and the OSCE general secretary said in his speech at an enlarged meeting of the CSTO Permanent Council.

At the meeting Bordyuzha noted that the cooperation between the two organizations “embraces many spheres, including such most important spheres as the struggle against terrorism and drug trafficking,” CSTO press secretary Vladimir Zainetdinov told Itar-Tass on Thursday. “The development of cooperation with OSCE became one of important trends of our activities in the relations with international organizations,” he said.

He pledged that CSTO is ready to continue to pool efforts with OSCE in ensuring security in the Eurasian space. “We are ready to consider new initiatives on joint projects in security, particularly in Central Asia and in view of a forthcoming withdrawal of the coalition troops from Afghanistan in 2014,” Bordyuzha noted. The law enforcement agencies of the CSTO states in the Central Asian region in order to build up the defence of the borders with Afghanistan have already received a substantial aid to arm them with weapons, provide them with machinery and communication equipment and in personnel training.

For his part, Zannier said that OSCE is interested in the active cooperation with CSTO after the withdrawal of the troops of the International Security Assistance Force from Afghanistan in 2014. “Afghanistan is not a place, where we can strengthen OSCE-CSTO cooperation,” he said, also calling for the use of the experience of the two organizations that was acquired during the international operation Channel in the struggle against drug trafficking from Afghanistan in 2011-2012.

Zannier stated a considerably intensified cooperation between the two organizations for the last three years and voiced confidence that the CSTO-OSCE cooperation “allows to raise stability and security in the member-countries of these two organizations.”