ArmInfo.The CSTO is unlikely to ensure solidity in the foreseeable future. This is at least proved by the latest decisions and events following the CSTO Summit in Yerevan, Deputy Head of the Caucasus Institute Sergey Minasyan has told ArmInfo.
On October 14, Yerevan hosted the meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council and Belarus assumed the CSTO chairmanship. Following the 3-hour meeting of the CSTO leaders behind the close doors, over 20 documents were signed, however, Nikolay Bordyuzha remains the CSTO Secretary General.
"In particular, the priority of the threats to Russia's security amid the intensifying confrontation with the West is becoming a problem for some CSTO member states. Judging by the experience of NATO and the Warsaw Treaty Organization, the key condition for solidity is the presence of a common threat that allows the member states to forget their own priorities. Given the fact that the country endangering Armenia's security is friendly for Kazakhstan, it is impossible to speak of any solidity of the CSTO," he says.
One more obstacle hindering the CSTO's solidity is the difference between the vectors and priorities of the CSTO member states, Minasyan says. For instance, Armenia's priority to form the CSTO member states' single stand on Karabakh is quite problematic for at least the Turkic brothers of Azerbaijan - Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Armenia, in turn, is unlikely to be interested in its servicemen's participation in the fight against Islamic fundamentalists on the Tajik-Afghan border.
"The problem is not only the lack of prospects for solidity. The problem is that being geographically scattered, the CSTO actually includes three sub-systems of security - Western, Caucasian and Central Asian. All these three sub-systems sometimes have even opposite priorities with respect to the other sub- systems," he says.
The CSTO member states are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. The Organization was created based on the Collective Security Treaty signed on 15 May 1992.