An announcement by Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev on Wednesday could mark a decisive turning point for the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Moscow-dominated version of NATO.
Speaking at a meeting of CSTO interior ministers, Nurgaliyev revealed that that the security bloc is drawing up a document laying the groundwork for eventual contingencies in which peacekeepers could be deployed during "crisis situations," such as the ones that rocked CSTO-member Kyrgyzstan this year.
CA-News.org via Xinhua cites Nurgaliyev as saying:
"An agreement was reached on the need to analyze the national legislation of CSTO members [...] to develop legal and practical mechanisms for responding to crises, new challenges and threats with the use of CSTO peacekeeping capacities."
The development sounds legalistic and abstruse to the point of incomprehensibility, but it is a development nonetheless. Next, a draft of the measures is to be submitted to Russia's Interior Ministry, which will summarize it and then put it to the CSTO Collective Security Council for consideration.
As EurasiaNet.org reported in June, the CSTO was indecisive and aimless when confronted with the massive ethnic unrest that broke out in southern Kyrgyzstan over the summer. To impartial observers, the situation presented clear solutions, but without an adequate legal framework in place, there was little the organization was ever likely to do.
The initiative appears to enjoy the backing of Kyrgyzstan's security ministries. In a sign of growing mutual trust, Nurgaliyev and Kyrgyz Interior Minister Zarylbek Rysaliyev signed off on a cooperation protocol between the two countries' police forces in 2011-12.
Other CSTO partners, most notably Uzbekistan, will likely be more reluctant to pursue these contingency plans. Even allowing for individual members to opt out of peacekeeping assistance may not be sufficient to placate Tashkent. After all, with the paranoia the Uzbek government has exhibited in the past, there is no reason to believe Tashkent will be comfortable with the idea of Russian troops massing anywhere near the country's borders.
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