Armenia absent from meeting of top Defense Ministry officials of CSTO   member-states 

ArmInfo. A working meeting  of the heads of the communications management bodies of the defense  departments of the CSTO member states was held in Astana at the National Defense University of Kazakhstan on November 13-14.  Delegations from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, the Joint Staff and the CSTO Secretariat, as well as industry representatives from Kazakhstan and Russia took part in it.

As reported by the CSTO press service, the Chief of the CSTO Joint Staff, Colonel General Andrey Serdyukov, noted that in modern conditions, joint efforts are needed to form common views and approaches to the development of the communications system.

"Taking into account the experience of the joint exercises, targeted work in this direction in the Joint Staff has been organized and is  being carried out in close cooperation with the defense departments of the CSTO member states. Its main goal is to further improve the  communications system of the CSTO Troops (Collective Forces),"  Serdyukov said.

The participants of the meeting discussed the main directions of development of the organizational and technical unification of forces and means of communication, options for organizing communication and data transmission using modern telecommunications, issues of interfacing equipment and means of communication.

Particular attention was paid to the use of advanced communication means in the contingents of the Troops (Collective Forces) of the CSTO, providing fundamentally new opportunities.

During the working meeting, the results of the functioning of the communication system and automated troop control systems were  considered, and ways to improve the technical basis of the CSTO interstate information interaction system were determined.

Earlier, Armenia stated that it was freezing its participation in CSTO events, also refused to allocate its share of funding for this structure, does not participate in joint military exercises and  meetings, but has not officially submitted an application to begin the process of leaving the CSTO.