DUSHANBE, February 14, Asia-Plus  --  Commenting on a critical situation that emerged in Tajikistan in connection with unusual cold weather and energy crisis, Nikolai Bordyuzha, secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), said that many CSTO member nations, in particular Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, have already begun to provide assistance to Tajikistan with mitigating effects of this natural disaster, information posted on the CSTO official website on February 13 said.  

According to him, the natural disaster has provided the evidence of the necessity of creating the CSTO disaster response potential.   “An important step in this direction was taken at the CSTO summit in Dushanbe in October 2007, which adopted an agreement on formation of a new coordination council on emergency situations and heads of relevant ministries and agencies are members of this council,” the secretary general said, noting that the critical situation that emerged in Tajikistan will be discussed at the first meeting of the council.

CSTO is the regional security organization, which was initially formed in 1992 for a five-year period by the members of the CIS Collective Security Treaty (CST) – Tajikistan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Uzbekistan, which were joined by Azerbaijan, Georgia and Belarus the following year.  A 1994 treaty reaffirmed the desire of all participating states to abstain from the use or threat of force, and prevented signatories from joining any other military alliances or other groups of states directed against member states.  The CST was then extended for another five-year term in April 1999, and was signed by presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russian and Tajikistan.  In October 2202, the group was renamed as the CSTO.