“The experts will consider draft documents that will make the foundation of the normative and legal base of military-economic cooperation within the Organisation’s format,” CSTO Deputy Secretary General Valery Semerikov said.

According to him, it is planned to discuss draft agreements on the preservation of specialisation of enterprises participating in the manufacturing of military purpose products, on the creation of interstate research and production associations for the output of military purpose products, on interaction in the transport operations in the interests of military-technical cooperation and in special cargoes’ transportation. The meeting participants will also consider proposals to the draft Programme of military-economic cooperation for a period up to 2015 and to the Protocol on ensuring the technical and information compatibility of armaments and military equipment of CSTO member states.

The CSTO brings together Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Each CSTO state plans to provide units for the rapid reaction force that in time of peace will be under the national command and in the special period will be transferred under the command of the rapid reaction force, CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha said in Yerevan earlier.

“The recent extraordinary CSTO summit in Moscow has become a critical event and occupied an important place in the organisation’s history,” the CSTO secretary general stated. The heads of state “made a decision to create the united forces that are capable of reacting to all categories of challenges and threats,” he noted.

Bordyuzha said that he visited Yerevan (2 March) for meetings with the leadership of Armenia that is currently presiding in the CSTO - with President of the republic Serzh Sargsyan who heads the CSTO Collective Security Council, the ministers of defence and foreign affairs, secretary of the country’s National Security Council, that today head the corresponding charter bodies of the organisation. The CSTO chief said that he will inform them about the “work done for the preparation of the necessary agreement and legal framework regulating the use and activities of the collective rapid reaction force.”

“After getting consent we will get down to the procedure of coordination with all CSTO member states in order to adopt these proposals at the organisation’s June summit,” Bordyuzha hopes. He hopes that starting “from June the collective forces will not only be formed, but will also be applied according to their task.”

On 7 October 2002, the Presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, signed a charter in Chisinau, founding the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) or simply the Tashkent Treaty. Nikolai Bordyuzha was appointed secretary general of the new organisation. On 23 June 2006, Uzbekistan became a full participant in the CSTO and its membership was formally ratified by its parliament on 28 March 2008. The CSTO is an observer organisation at the United Nations General Assembly.

The charter reaffirmed the desire of all participating states to abstain from the use or threat of force. Signatories would not be able to join other military alliances or other groups of states, while aggression against one signatory would be perceived as an aggression against all. To this end, the CSTO holds yearly military command exercises for the CSTO nations to have an opportunity to improve inter-organisation cooperation. The largest-scale CSTO military exercise held to date were the “Rubezh 2008” exercises hosted in Armenia where a combined total of 4,000 troops from all 7 constituent CSTO member countries conducted operative, strategic, and tactical training with an emphasis towards furthering efficiency of the collective security element of the CSTO partnership.

The CSTO employs a “rotating presidency” system in which the country leading the CSTO alternates every year. Currently Armenia has the CSTO presidency.

On 4 February 2009, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced that the rapid military reaction force that would be deployed during a military aggression against a CSTO member would be “just as good as comparable NATO forces.” He added that Russia would be ready to contribute a division and a brigade.