The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) will send “specialist equipment” to Kyrgyzstan but is still debating what help, if any, it can provide to protect strategic sites such as the Toktogul Reservoir in the troubled state.
“It was one of the topics discussed in Moscow yesterday [June 17] and they promised to consider this question,” an assistant to the newly appointed head of the Kyrgyz security council, Alik Orozov, told EurasiaNet.org.
In the meantime, the CSTO equipment earmarked for Kyrgyzstan is likely to include helicopters without weapons and other “non-lethal” military hardware that can be used for crowd control, RIA Novosti reported on June 18.
The CSTO could also send “specialists who know how to plan and prepare operations to prevent mass disorder, identify plotters and contain gangs that provoke the situation,” a CSTO spokesperson was quoted as saying.
It’s not quite the assistance Kyrgyzstan wanted. However questions remain over what sort of quid pro quo arrangements Moscow may seek in return for small favors.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the American base at Manas airport should not become a permanent fixture and its future should be a “question for discussion.”
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