Putin: Russia and other CSTO states don’t tolerate terrorism in any of its manifestations
Russia and other members of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) don’t tolerate terrorism in any of its manifestations and in any regions of the world, TASS reports
Russian President Vladimir Putin made the statement during his speech at the CSTO Collective Security Council session in Minsk.
“Our countries, including Russia, don’t tolerate terrorism in any of its manifestations and in any regions of the world,” he said. “We have been jointly implementing a set of measures aiming to combat extremism, transnational crime, illegal migration and drug trafficking. Moreover, the CSTO Co-ordination Council on Biosafety has been launched, focusing on preventing threats associated with the development and use of biological weapons, on ensuring radiation, chemical and medical protection.”
The Russian leader also added that the next meeting of CSTO Collective Security Council is scheduled for December in St. Petersburg.
In his speech Putin focused on joint efforts to improve the CSTO collective rapid deployment and operational response forces, aviation and peacekeeping forces. He said that a range of measures had been taken to maintain combat readiness, improve the command and control system and increase the training of military personnel, including the Vzaimodeistvie [Interaction], Poisk [Search] and Eshelon [Echelon] manoeuvres in Belarus, as well as the Combat Brotherhood-2023 peacekeeping exercise in Kyrgyzstan. Putin also noted that co-operation between intelligence services and law enforcement agencies was consistently reinforced. In particular, the CSTO operation Mercenary was continued, aimed at suppressing recruitment and blocking exit channels for citizens of the CSTO member states to participate in the activities of international terrorist groups.
The Russian leader spoke about the active work that was carried out by all CSTO member countries during the year and contributed to strengthening allied ties within the organisation on the principles of support, respect and consideration of each other’s interests. According to him, thereby, in practice, assistance was provided to the key mission of the association as a regional defence structure responsible for maintaining peace and stability in the vast Eurasian space.
“Thanks to productive interaction between foreign ministries, defence ministries, security councils, and parliaments, we quickly agreed on current political and military-strategic issues, alongside pressing problems on the regional and international agenda,” Putin underlined.
He called it important that this year the CSTO’s contacts with its partners – the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation and the Commonwealth of Independent States – have developed.
