is currently made up of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan.
The Organisation’s objectives are strengthening peace, international and regional security and stability, and the collective protection of freedom, territorial integrity, and sovereignty of its member-states, to be achieved first and foremost through political means.
* * *
On May 15, 1992, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan signed the Tashkent Collective Security Treaty (CST). Azerbaijan signed the treaty on September 24, 1993, Georgia on September 9, 1993, and Belarus on December 31, 1993.
The treaty entered into force on April 20, 1994 for a term of five years, with the possibility of an extension. On April 2, 1999, the presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan signed a protocol to extend the treaty for further five years. However, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Uzbekistan declined the treaty extension.
It was decided at the Moscow session of the CST on May 14, 2002, to convert the CST into a full-fledged international organisation: the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO).
On December 2, 2004, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution granting the CSTO observer status.
On August 16, 2006, a resolution was signed in Sochi to restore Uzbekistan’s CSTO membership. In December 2012, Uzbekistan officially suspended its membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organisation.
The Organisation’s supreme body is the Collective Security Council (CSC) consisting of the heads of the Organisation’s member-states.
Its permanent body is the Secretariat, headed by the Secretary General appointed by the CSC from among citizens of the member-states and reporting to the Council.
On February 4, 2009, a special session of the CSTO’s Collective Security Council in Moscow passed a resolution to create the Collective Rapid Reaction Force (CRRF).
Detailed information on CSTO is available at its official website at www.odkb-csto.org