Collective Security Treaty Organisation marks 30 years

Context

The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) marked its 30th year at an anniversary summit hosted by Moscow recently.

About Collective Security Treaty Organization

• CSTO is an intergovernmental military alliance (six countries) that came into effect in 2002.
• Its origin can be traced to the Collective Security Treaty, 1992 (Tashkent Treaty).
• In 1992, six post-Soviet states belonging to the Commonwealth of Independent States—Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan—signed the Collective Security Treaty
• This is also referred to as the “Tashkent Pact” or “Tashkent Treaty”.
• Three other post-Soviet states—Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Georgia—signed the next year and the treaty took effect in 1994.
• Five years later, six of the nine—all but Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Uzbekistan—agreed to renew the treaty for five more years, and in 2002 those six agreed to create the CSTO as a military alliance.
• The headquarters is located in the Russian capital of Moscow.
• The objectives of the CSTO is to strengthen peace, international and regional security including cybersecurity and stability, the protection on a collective basis of the independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty of the member states.