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CSTO chief encourages scrutiny regarding enlargement of post-Soviet alliance

At the moment, the CSTO includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan

MOSCOW, February 9. /TASS/. The CSTO’s enlargement should be weighed very carefully so as not to undermine the unity of the organization, the alliance’s Secretary General Stanislav Zas said at the Valdai Club-hosted conference dubbed "Collective Security in a New Era: Experience and Prospects of the CSTO" on Wednesday.

"We should consider the question of the CSTO’s enlargement very carefully. 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 erode our unity and solidarity. It's very important for us to actually be an effective organization," he stressed.

The CSTO is an international security organization, which currently includes six states: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.

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