CSTO drills in Kyrgyzstan not directed against other countries — chief of staff

MOSCOW, September 11. /TASS/. The exercises of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) on the territory of Kyrgyzstan comply with international norms and are not directed against other countries, the Chief of Staff of the post-Soviet security bloc, Andrey Serdyukov, stated.
TASS received information from the Joint Press Center of the organization’s exercises, which quoted Serdyukov’s words in a press release on the results of the drills.
“I would like to stress that the conducted activities are aimed at protecting on a collective basis the independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty of the organization’s member states, they fully comply with international norms and are not directed against other countries,” Serdyukov said.
The Chief of the CSTO Joint Staff thanked all participants for high skill in field training, professionalism and “for the best qualities demonstrated in a rather difficult environment, in conditions close to combat ones.” “Our alliance is getting stronger, we are enhancing the Collective Forces, creating a solid basis for increasing the readiness of management bodies, as well as force generation and means of the CSTO system to fulfill the tasks as intended,” he added. “I express my sincere words of gratitude to the leadership of the Ministry of Defense of the Kyrgyz Republic, to other ministries and agencies that took part in the exercises, and want to thank for the high quality of organization and conduct of all events, warm welcome, assistance and help provided.”
In addition, Serdyukov drew attention to the fact that in a week’s time, the joint military drills will continue in Kazakhstan as part of exercises with CSTO peacekeeping forces entitled Unbreakable Brotherhood, and then in Tajikistan as part of exercises with the Collective Rapid Deployment Forces (CRDF) of the Central Asian region Rubezh.
“Summing up, I would like to note that despite the experience gained during the exercises, we should not stop at the results achieved, we should strive for further improvement and development of our Collective Forces and to strengthen the collective security of the CSTO member states,” the Chief of the CSTO Joint Staff concluded.
Today, the active phase of the Interaction-2024 command and staff exercise with the CSTO Collective Rapid Reaction Force, as well as the Search-2024 and Echelon-2024 special exercises was completed on the territory of the Kyrgyz Republic.