Lavrov to go to Minsk to attend meeting of CSTO FMs on May 31

MOSCOW, May 30 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
will go to Minsk on Monday to attend a meeting of the Council of Foreign
Ministers of the member-countries of the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) on May 31.
"High on the agenda of the meeting is the current problems in
cooperation between the CSTO states. The CSTO foreign ministers are to
discuss the development of the international situation and its influence
on security in the CSTO states," a diplomatic source in the Russian
Foreign Ministry said.
The traditional items on the agenda of the meeting are the cooperation
between the Foreign Ministries, particularly the synchronization of the
cooperation with other international organizations, the diplomatic source
said. The foreign ministers will also consider the prospects and the ways
to improve the peacekeeping activities in the CSTO-UN format under the
joint declaration on cooperation, which the secretariats of the
organizations signed in March 2010.
Russia called as the guidelines in this format the improvement of the
CSTO instruments to adapt the organization to new realities, including a
more efficient response to the challenges and threats to security in the
CSTO states. "In this context, the foreign ministers will consider the
progress in fulfilling the decisions, which had been taken at the December
(2010) session of the CSTO Collective Security Council, and the operation
of the specific coordination instruments of the organization," the Russian
diplomatic source said. "The foreign ministers are also planning to
consider several administrative and organizational issues," the source
said.
The Collective Security Treaty Organization is an international
military and political union, which brought together seven countries
(Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan). The CSTO was founded in 1992. The presidents of the CSTO
states decided to grant the status of an international regional
organization to the CSTO on May 14, 2002, and the UN General Assembly
decided to grant an observer status to the CSTO at a UN General Assembly
annual session on December 2, 2004.
The CSTO should ward off external threats, protect the territorial
integrity and sovereignty of the CSTO states without any interference in
the domestic political affairs of the CSTO states. Nikolai Bordyuzha has
been working as CSTO Secretary General since April 2003. Belarusian
President Alexander Lukashenko currently heads the CSTO Collective
Security Council, which includes the presidents of the CSTO states.