CSTO Secretary General: Lukashenka ready to sign agreement on CORF

Belarus is to sign an agreement on creation of the Collective Operational Reaction Forces In the near future, believes the Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization Nikolai Bordyuzha.

“We expect Belarus to sign in the near future,” Nikolai Bordyuzha said to journalists in Moscow on Tuesday.

Besides Belarus, he reminded that the agreement of creation of the CORF hasn’t been signed by Uzbekistan, which does not plan to sign it so far, as it has its personal opinion on the makeup of the CORF.

In particular, the country is against joining the Collective force of anti-terrorism units.

Nikolai Bordyuzha noted that Belarus hasn’t signed an agreement on the CORF creation still, because the country’s delegation was absent of the CSTO summit.

At the same time, Minsk delegation had been working on this agreement for a long time on a routine and results-oriented basis, studied all its aspects in full and hadn’t had any remarks, the Secretary General said.

“The Belarusian side was ready to sign this agreement,” Bordyuzha underscored. “Moreover, at the session of the Security Council which was held before the session of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Belarusian side approved the draft agreement and offered its suggestions concerning the CORF makeup,” Bordyuzha said.

“I think non-signing the agreement by Belarus is a purely technical problem, and it would be resolved in the near future,” he noted.

Speaking about Uzbekistan, the CSTO Secretary General told that that country signed the draft agreement on the CORF creation, but with a “special opinion”.

Uzbekistan spoke in favour of troops’ formations’ joining the CORF, but against anti-terrorism forces being a part of it.

“They say they are not ready for that so far, but they do not interfere with signing the agreement, and do not object its signing, but they do not plan to participate in it now in its present form,” Bordyuzha noted.

As the website www.charter97.org informed earlier with a reference to he newspaper “Kommersant”, at the CSTO summit in Kyrgyzstan Alyaksandr Lukashenka promised not only to sign the CORF agreement at the earliest opportunity, but also to take the seat of the CSTO chairman, which Minsk was to take during the June summit in Moscow.

“Alyaksandar Lukashenka hasn’t missed the chance to speak to the colleagues about his milk and meat problems, though the CSTO is not the platform for discussing food problems. But he assured that in the near future Belarus would return to the full-fledged work I the framework of the CSTO. Everything would be signed at the nearest meeting of the seven countries,” a source in the Russian delegation said to “Kommersant”. He has also noted that Lukashenka hasn’t signed anything at the shore of Issyk Kul for one reason: “So that nobody would have an impression that Belarus has given in under the pressure of Russia”. At the same time, as said by the interlocutor, there wasn’t mentioned any exchange, the CORF for the Russian $500 mln loan. “Lukashenka hasn’t offered any additional terms to us,” the source assured.

In the near future Alyaksandr Lukashenka would have a chance to fulfill his promises. In August in Kazakhstan the first military exercises of the CORF are to start. They are to last till middle autumn. The CSTO presidents are planning to observe their active phase which is to start on September 14, personally.