CSTO expansion quite probable — secretary general
The need for peacekeeping missions of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russia-led security bloc, will grow in the world, so its expansion is quite possible in the foreseeable future, CSTO Secretary General Ismangali Tasmagambetov said, Paralel.Az reports citing TASS.
"Naturally, such a possibility is not ruled out in principle. The matter is that amid the collapse of the old world order, when old conflicts are reviving and new ones are emerging, the need for military-political alliances will grow," he said in an interview with editor-in-chief of the National Defense magazine Igor Korotchenko.
"It is not ruled out that our peacekeeping activity will be some sort of a driving engine for the organization’s expansion or the emergence of new formats of cooperation on the CSTO basis. Regrettably, the need for its peacekeeping activity will only grow in the foreseeable future," he noted.
According to the CSTO secretary general, the organization offers advantageous conditions for participation. "I think that one of the most important of them is the lack of a strict bloc discipline and a democratic procedure of adopting decisions within the organization. Of key importance is also the fact that the CSTO attaches priority significance to political and diplomatic methods of settling crisis situations," he stressed.