EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Anti-terror Exercise Held At Kazakhstan's Baykonur Cosmodrome

EURASIA INSIGHT

ANTI-TERROR EXERCISE HELD AT KAZAKHSTAN’S BAYKONUR COSMODROME
9/27/07
A EurasiaNet Partner Post from BBC Monitoring

Excerpt from report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS

Baykonur, 26 September: Antiterror exercises at Kazakhstan’s Baykonur cosmodrome, which began today, will make a significant contribution to strengthening the CIS’s potential of combating terrorism. Cosmonauts Fedor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov, members of the 15th crew of the International Space Station [ISS], said this, welcoming the start of the exercises.

The event began with a gathering of the heads of antiterror subdivisions of CIS countries, which is being held for the seventh time.

"The exercises of the special services of Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus with the participation of observers from the special services of other states of the CIS and also international and regional organizations for fighting terrorism confirm the need to fight this threat by joint efforts," the commander of the 15th crew of the International Space Station, Fedor Yurchikhin, said.

[Passage omitted: Pennants of CIS antiterror centre and Russia’s National Antiterror Committee have been delivered to the ISS]

According to the exercises’ idea, international terrorists shoot several personnel and seize a nitrogen-oxygen plant - ecologically hazardous production - and make demands: 5m dollars and the release of their associates from prison.

The director of the FSB of the Russian Federation and the chairman of the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan have been informed about this, an operations headquarters established, and preparations are under way for an operation to free the hostages and neutralize the terrorists.

Vladimir Bulavin, head of the apparatus of Russia’s National Antiterror Committee [NAC] and deputy director of the FSB, noted that "in holding the exercises, the special legal status of the Baykonur cosmodrome, its significant international importance and specifics of the system of ensuring security and law and order on the territory of the site were taken into account". Russia leases Baykonur from Kazakhstan until the year 2050.

"Russia’s special services are always willing and ready to participate in CIS antiterror exercises, each of which make an additional contribution to the development of mutual understanding and cooperation in the sphere of counteracting terrorism in the CIS," Bulavin emphasized.

The exercises in Baykonur will be completed on 28 September.

Editor�s Note: Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0512 gmt 26 Sep 07

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