Belarus promoting initiative on CSTO partnership institute

MINSK. KAZINFORM Belarus is promoting an initiative on setting up a partnership institute of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Belarus' Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Makei said in an interview to the Mir Television and Radio Company.    

“Belarus' next initiative, and we are actively promoting it, is to set up the CSTO partnership institute to develop closer and stronger relations with third countries. Many countries are interested in the cooperation with the CSTO as they face the same challenges and problems as our organization. First of all, this is terrorism which knows no boundaries. That is why we are developing this partnership institute and plan to involve third countries that show an interest in it,” said Vladimir Makei.

The minister spoke about other CSTO foreign political coordination tasks on which Belarus is going to work during its presidency in the organization. “In our opinion, close cooperation between the CSTO member states at different levels is of crucial importance today. Here, we will be working on strengthening our foreign political, coordinating our steps in the international arena. The primary area is the coordination of the foreign political activity during our presidency in the organization. The second area is a stronger positioning of the CSTO in the international arena. I have already mentioned that the CSTO has an observer status in the UN General Assembly. We will continue promoting the image of our organization in the international field and strengthening our cooperation with the United Nations and the OSCE. We suggested including the corresponding measures into the action plan for 2017. Besides, we are determined to continue developing the military side of our organization,” he added. Vladimir Makei mentioned the plans to attach more attention to regulating regional conflicts within the CSTO responsibility zone.

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