In an exclusive interview with the TASS agency, the CSTO Secretary General Imangali Tasmagambetov spoke about the organization’s current relations with the Armenian leadership, the CSTO peacekeeping work and assessed the security situation in Eurasia.
— Imangali Nurgaliyevich, you have recently returned from the Republic of Kazakhstan, where you had a number of working meetings on cooperation with the CSTO. What is your overall assessment of your visit?
— I assess the visit to Astana positively. I met with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Secretary of the Security Council and the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and the Chairman of the Majilis of the Parliament. The political leadership of Kazakhstan, which is chairing the CSTO this year, has approved the plan of activities of the organization for 2024 prepared by the Secretariat. The plan in turn is based on the priorities of Kazakhstan's chairmanship, presented at the summit of the Collective Security Council in Minsk last November. The plan focuses on the statutory tasks, collective military component, joint countering of challenges and threats, expansion of cooperation through the Parliamentary Assembly of the organization. Among the upcoming events whose implementation was discussed in Astana were preparations for the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, the Council of Defense Ministers and the Committee of Secretaries of the CSTO Security Councils in June this year.
— Should we expect large-scale activities as part of the implementation of the military and military-technical components of the organization’s work?
— All activities in this area will take place in accordance with the Plan for the Joint Training of the Collective Security System's Control Bodies and Formations of Forces and Means for the current year. This plan was approved by the relevant statutory bodies of the organization - the Council of Defense Ministers and the Committee of Secretaries of Security Councils. Thus, strategic command-staff training of the Joint Staff, the Secretariat and interested ministries and departments of the CSTO member states, command-staff trainings "Interaction-2024", "Indestructible Brotherhood-2024", special trainings "Search-2024", "Echelon-2024", "Rock-2024", "Cobalt-2024", joint trainings "Rubezh-2024" on the territory of the Republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Russia are planned. These are already tested formats of trainings as part of the implementation of the organization’s key areas of work.
— How do you assess the prospects for the adoption of the Special Interstate Policy (SIP)?
— Work on the adoption of the CSTO Special Interstate Policy for strengthening sections of the Tajik-Afghan Border is proceeding quite actively. It includes specific measures aimed at ensuring the security of the southern part of the CSTO area of responsibility. Thus, in late February and early March, a meeting was held between representatives of the ministries and departments concerned of the CSTO member states and members of the Working Group to finalize the draft SIP. The draft Policy was approved by the CSTO Permanent Council and sent for internal departmental approval to the member states. Here it is important to note the political will of the leadership of two of the organization’s members, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which is aware of the scale of the threats emanating from Afghanistan. We very much hope that the Secretariat will be able to present the results of this work in the first half of the year.
— Recently, there has been a lot of speculation in the information field about Armenia's further participation in the CSTO. Officials in the Republic of Armenia make rather harsh statements. How do you see further interaction between the organization and the Republic of Armenia?
— It is true that Yerevan has not participated in the work of the CSTO Secretariat recently. This is Armenia's decision at this stage, and we, as an international organization, respect any decision by a sovereign State. Nevertheless, the activities of the organization continue in full, all procedures are followed in full compliance with the CSTO normative framework. The Secretariat informs the relevant structures in Yerevan about the decisions taken and adopted in the working mode. With regard to the statements mentioned by the officials of the Republic of Armenia, I should like to point out that the Secretariat has not received any official statements from Yerevan on the suspension of membership in the organization.
— However, does the Secretariat and you, as the chief administrative officer of the organization, expect such a statement from Armenia?
— Both I and the Secretariat work in strict compliance with the regulations and procedures adopted by the organization. Of course, we analyze the situation around Armenia and Armenia's relations with the organization with the help of our analysts and the tools available to them. I can't hide that certain developments and sentiments among the elites of Armenia cause concern. But we hope for political sobriety of the political leadership of Armenia and a balanced assessment of the prospects for the implementation of various scenarios with regard to the organization. I emphasize that the Republic of Armenia remains our ally and all existing commitments remain in force.
— What is currently happening with the peacekeeping track of the organization’s activities?
— The Organization has traditionally paid special attention to the peacekeeping track. I recall that the CSTO peacekeeping forces successfully proved themselves in January 2022. However, the CSTO aims to expand its participation in peacekeeping initiatives outside the organization’s area of responsibility. Here we cannot do without close cooperation with authoritative international organizations. At the present time, administrative, legal and organizational conditions are being actively formed to integrate the CSTO's collective peacekeeping potential into United Nations peacekeeping activities. Thus, the Republic of Kazakhstan participates in United Nations peacekeeping operations in Western Sahara, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Lebanon. And we plan to expand the formats of cooperation. An important step on this path was the introduction of the institution of a "coordinating state", authorized to act on behalf of the CSTO member states in contacts with the United Nations Secretariat for Peacekeeping. Last September, in Moscow, representatives of the CSTO member states held a meeting on the agenda of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly, where the prospects for involving the organization’s potential in United Nations peacekeeping were discussed and the importance of the CSTO's effective participation in global peacekeeping efforts was noted.
— Imangali Nurgaliyevich, what are your expectations from the current global changes in the system of international relations in terms of ensuring regional security in Eurasia?
— These changes are truly global in nature, and the world will obviously never be the same again. We see that the global system for managing international processes is suffering to the greatest extent, many crises are becoming unmanageable, and this has the most negative impact on regional security, and the risks associated with transnational threats are growing. In this situation, regional security systems are bearing the brunt of the burden, prompting them to seek additional resources, including diplomatic and political resources, develop new tools and create fundamentally new formats of interaction. This is fully applicable to the CSTO as well. The number of threats and challenges in Eurasia is growing, their quality is changing and requires additional attention from regional structures. In general, in my opinion, in the foreseeable future, as a polycentric system of international relations develops, we will face the need to increase the level of responsibility of regional security systems and, possibly, to expand their functionality.
