MOSCOW, November 14, 12:55 /ITAR-TASS/. The legal framework in the sphere of peacekeeping has been fully formed within the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), chief of the CSTO joint staff, Lieutenant-General Aleksander Studenkin said on Thursday at an international conference on CSTO member states’ peacekeeping activity.
“The organisation has now formed the necessary regulatory framework, determining issues of the member states’ participation in peacekeeping operations,” he said, stressing that this regulatory framework fully complied with international law norms.
CSTO deputy secretary general Valery Smerikov for his part informed the conference participants that to date, the CSTO peacekeeping force contingent comprises 3,600 men. The national peacekeeping forces are staffed by specially trained military experts, police and civilian personnel.
Peacekeepers’ training is conducted by CSTO member states independently and in joint exercises. For example, the joint peacekeeping contingent manoeuvres Unbreakable Brotherhood were conducted in 2012 and 2013. “Next joint CSTO manoeuvres will be conducted in Kyrgyzstan in 2014,” Studenkin said.
He named the priorities in the CSTO peacekeeping contingent development: military forces build-up, improvement of the command structure and training system, equipment of the forces. “The CSTO joint staff sees the further improvement of the peacekeeping forces as one of the most important directions in the development of the military component of the CSTO system of collective security,” he stressed.