Monday, May 16 2022 19:27

ArmInfo. The Collective Security Council (CSC) of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) issued a statement in connection with the 30th anniversary of  the Collective Security Treaty and the 20th anniversary of the CSTO.

The statement of the leaders of the CSTO countries, in particular,  says: "We, the members of the Collective Security Council of the  Collective Security Treaty Organization, in connection with the 30th  anniversary of the signing of the Collective Security Treaty and the  20th anniversary of the establishment of our Organization on its  basis, declare that our choice in favor of uniting efforts to  maintain peace and security in the Eurasian space has stood the test  of time.

The treaty, concluded in 1992, fulfills its main task of ensuring the  security and stability, territorial integrity and sovereignty of the  states participating in it. Our efforts to strengthen the  Organization and adapt it to the current geopolitical situation have  made it possible to intensify military-political cooperation and form  an effective system of collective security and counteraction to  challenges and threats.

The CSTO, established in 2002, has raised the cooperation of the  member states to a qualitatively new level of allied relations, has  accumulated significant potential to counter a wide range of modern  challenges and threats, and has become an important factor in peace  and stability in the Eurasian space.  The structure of the  Organization is being improved, the range of its activities is  expanding in all major areas, including foreign policy coordination,  military and military-economic cooperation, crisis response,  peacekeeping, parliamentary dimension, combating international  terrorism and extremism, ensuring information and biological  security, countering organized transnational crimes, including  illegal production and trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic  substances and their precursors, illegal arms trafficking,  legalization (laundering) of proceeds from criminal activity, illegal  migration.

Having the appropriate potential to ensure the security and stability  of the Member States, the Organization firmly proceeds from the fact  that there is no alternative to solving existing international  problems by political and diplomatic means and gives priority to the  development of coordinated approaches to the problem of improving the  international situation, countering the challenges and threats that  the Member States have to face CSTO.

The CSTO peacekeeping operation in the Republic of Kazakhstan,  conducted in January 2022, confirmed the readiness of the Collective  Forces to effectively solve the tasks of ensuring the security of the  member states and demonstrated to the international community the  Organization's ability to promptly deploy and complete the mission,  thereby demonstrating the high status of the CSTO in the system of  international and regional organizations.

We are satisfied with our expanding interaction in the international  arena and the level of foreign policy coordination on the main items  of the global and regional agenda. We are ready to deepen cooperation  with the United Nations, other interested international and regional  organizations and states.

Over the period that has passed since the signing of the Treaty,  international relations in the conditions of disunity of the world  community are increasingly characterized by an aggravation of  tension.

The situation in Afghanistan and on other external borders of the  CSTO member states causes concern. In this regard, we express our  readiness to ensure the security of the borders of the zone of  responsibility of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

We are seriously concerned about the tendency to use force to  intervene in crisis situations, bypassing universally recognized  international legal norms and principles, using force or the threat  of using force to resolve conflicts in violation of the UN Charter.

We are concerned about the selective application of generally  recognized norms and principles of international law, ignorance of  internationally recognized negotiation formats, unwillingness to take  into account the legitimate interests of sovereign states,  interference in their internal affairs, the use of unilateral  sanctions and restrictions in violation of the prerogatives of the UN  Security Council, manifestations of double standards, hatred and  intolerance.

Realizing our responsibility for ensuring lasting peace in the  Eurasian region, we emphasize the importance of reducing tension on  the continent and reaffirm our readiness to establish practical  cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

We strongly condemn any attempts to falsify historical events related  to our common contribution to counteracting Nazi aggression. Together  we will continue to oppose any attempts to glorify Nazism and spread  neo-Nazism, as well as racism and xenophobia. We honor the memory of  the ancestors who died during the Great Patriotic War, we condemn  manifestations of the "war" against monuments in honor of the  fighters against Nazism, the whitewashing of participants in the Nazi  movement and their accomplices. We express our serious concern in  connection with attempts to ban at the legislative level the symbols  associated with the Victory over Nazism. We emphasize that the facts  of the expulsion and extermination of the civilian population of the  USSR by the Nazis and their accomplices, established in the Judgment  of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, should be  regarded as genocide of the peoples of the Soviet Union.

The path we have passed, as a result of which the Collective Security  Treaty Organization has acquired a new quality, has become an  authoritative organization of international and regional security,  allows us to look to the future with confidence.  Making this  Statement in connection with the 30th anniversary of the Collective  Security Treaty and the 20th anniversary of the CSTO, we confirm that  the Organization will consistently ensure the security, sovereignty  and territorial integrity of its member states, work to strengthen  global and regional security, a fair settlement of international  problems on the basis of universally recognized norms and principles  of international law".