On 13 January, an extraordinary session of the Council of Defense Ministers of the Collective Security Treaty Organization was held via video link.
The session was chaired by the Chairman of the CSTO Council of Defense Ministers, Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia, Suren Papikyan. Participating were the defense ministers of the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, the Chief of the CSTO Joint Staff, Colonel-General Anatoly Sidorov, the Deputy Secretary General of the CSTO, Tahir Khairuloev, and the Commander of the CSTO Collective Peacekeeping Forces in the Republic of Kazakhstan, Colonel-General Andrei Serdyukov.
During the session, the defense ministers of the CSTO member states discussed the results of the peacekeeping operation in the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as issues of ensuring regional security and improving the mechanisms for rapid response to emerging threats.
As a result of the extraordinary session of the CSTO Council of Defense Ministers, the heads of the defense departments signed a joint decision of the CSTO Council of Defense Ministers “On Organizing the Return of Peacekeeping Units of CSTO Member States from the Territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan to Their Permanent Deployment Locations.”
