DUSHANBE, September 29, 2014, Asia-Plus -- A meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Coordinating Council of Heads of Competent Bodies on countering illegal migration will take place in Dushanbe on October 1.

According to the CSTO Secretariat, the CSTO Secretary-General Nikolai Bordyuzha will also attend the meeting that will discuss modern approaches to organization of work on countering illegal migration, legislative regulation of migration, and improvement of preventive measures.

The meeting participants will include heads and senior representatives of the competitive bodies on countering illegal migration from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan as well as representatives of the Coordinative Service of the CIS Council of Border Troops Commanders.

The meeting participants will discuss issues related to immigration control, providing cooperation between the migration service agencies and border control bodies, and detecting new channels of illegal migration from the third countries.

In this connection, the meeting participants will discuss the possible mass inflow of refugees from Afghanistan and measures on making the CSTO member nations ready for responding to possible emergency situations connected with mass arrival of refugees and asylum-seekers from Afghanistan after the withdrawal o international coalition forces from Afghanistan in 2014, the source said.

The regional security organization was initially set up in 1992 in a meeting in Tashkent and Uzbekistan once already suspended its membership in 1999.  However, Tashkent returned to the CSTO again in 2006 The regional security organization was initially formed in 1992 for a five-year period by the members of the CIS Collective Security Treaty (CST) -- Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, 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 members states.  The CST was then extended for another five-year term in April 1999, and was signed by the presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.  In October 2002, the group was renamed as the CSTO.  Uzbekistan that suspended its membership in 1999 returned to the CSTO again in 2006 after it came under international criticism for its brutal crackdown of antigovernment demonstrations in the eastern city of Andijon in May 2005.  On June 28, 2012, Uzbekistan announced that it has suspended its membership of the CSTO, saying the organization ignores Uzbekistan and does not consider its views.  The CSTO is currently an observer organization at the United Nations General Assembly.

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