English

Lukashenka turns down invitation to observe CSTO maneuvers

Alyaksandr Lukashenka will not visit Kazakhstan on October 16 to observe the final stage of military exercises that the Collective Rapid Response Force of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) began two weeks ago, RIA Novosti reported on Thursday with reference to the spokesman for the Kazakh foreign ministry, BelaPAN said.

“Defense Minister Leanid Maltsaw will represent Belarus at the exercises,” the spokesman, Ilyas Omarov, said.

All CSTO heads of state were invited to observe the maneuvers, the first of the kind of the newly formed NATO-style rapid-reaction force, according to Mr. Omarov.

The leaders of Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan confirmed their participation; they are expected to arrive in Kazakhstan in the latter half of Thursday, the spokesman said.

It is not yet clear whether the leader of Uzbekistan will arrive, he added.

The press office of Mr. Lukashenka was not immediately available for comment.

Mr. Maltsaw and Stanislaw Zas, deputy state secretary of the Council of Security, have already left for Kazakhstan.

More than 7,000 troops gathered at the Matybulak training grounds for the maneuvers on October 2, the Kazakh defense ministry said in a statement on its web site.

The ministry said that the drills would, among other things, help train troops in combating insurgent uprisings in CSTO member countries -- something that has worried some Central Asian nations that share borders with Afghanistan or Pakistan.

All CSTO member states except Belarus and Uzbekistan signed the CSTO agreement on the establishment of the Collective Rapid Response Force at a summit held in Moscow on June 14, 2009. Mr. Lukashenka boycotted the meeting in protest against Russia’s decision to ban the import of nearly all dairy products from Belarus earlier that month.

Earlier this month, the CSTO Secretariat said that it expected Mr. Lukashenka to put his signature to the agreement on the sidelines of the maneuvers in Kazakhstan.

On October 6, Viktar Huminski, chairman of the national security committee in the Belarusian House of Representatives, said that Mr. Lukashenka had signed a presidential edict providing for Belarus’ accession to the agreement on the force. //