ANKARA
Kazakhstan continues to fulfill its obligations to the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the country’s defense minister said on Wednesday.
“There is no crisis within the intergovernmental military alliance,” Zhaksylykov said.
“Let’s depend on our state, on our legislation. Let’s respect all the established rules, everything is in order at home,” he added, urging speculation about the alliance.
This comes two weeks after senior military officials and defense ministers met for an assembly of the Council of Defense Ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a Eurasian regional bloc of post-Soviet countries.
On Sunday, CSTO member Kyrgyzstan announced the cancellation of the alliance’s army a day before it was to begin.
No explanation was issued on the reason for the cancellation, but it came amid border tensions between Kyrgyzstan and neighboring Tajikistan, also a member of the CSTO.
The CSTO was founded in 1992 and is composed of six former Soviet states, namely Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.