DUSHANBE, September 21, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) does not plan to send peacekeeping troops to Tajikistan, the first deputy chief of the CSTO united staff, Colonel-General Anatoly Nagovitsin, announced at a meeting with reporters on September 21, Russian media report.

He noted that the CSTO united staff did not plan to send peacekeeping troops to Tajikistan because they have not received an appropriate request from Tajikistan.  He added that Tajikistan’s Ministry of Defense had announced its readiness to settle the situation on its own.  “They are coping with the situation themselves,” Nagovitsin stated.

Nagovitsin today inaugurated the first training for representatives from the CSTO peacekeeping contingents as well as divisions of defense and interior ministries dealing with peacekeeping activities.

The Collective Security Treaty now groups Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.