DUSHANBE, March 16, 2011, Asia-Plus  -- The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha arrived in Dushanbe Tuesday evening.

We will recall that on March 14-15, the CSTO secretary general was on two-day visit in the Tajik northern Sughd province.

Today, Bordyuzha is scheduled to hold a number of meetings with high-ranking Tajik state officials and senior representatives from a number of international organizations active in Tajikistan, the CSTO Secretariat reports.

The CSTO secretary general is expected to hold talks with Tajik Security Council Secretary Amirqul Azimov and Tajik Drug Control Agency head Rustam Nazarov as well as representatives of the UNDP Tajikistan and the OSCE Office in Tajikistan to discuss issues related to providing regional security and countering extremism, terrorism and transnational crime as well as the current situation in Afghanistan.

On March 17, Bordyuzha will take part at a meeting of the CSTO Working Group on Afghanistan.  The meeting will discuss the current situation in Afghanistan and a complex of measures necessary to provide security of Central Asia’s countries and address threat and challenges emanating from the territory of Afghanistan, the CSTO Secretariat noted.

The meeting participants will also consider possible steps to strengthen coordination of activities of the antiterrorism and counternarcotics agencies on the Afghan direction and provide support for strengthening of the Tajik-Afghan border management and control.

CSTO secretary-general’s visit to Tajikistan will conclude on March 18.

The CSTO set up its Working Group on Afghanistan in 2005.  Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted in November 2005 that the CSTO foreign ministers agreed that threats, including drug and terrorist menaces, have persisted largely due to the situation in Afghanistan, which has remained tense.   "We studied the situation and decided to set up a body, a working group, to monitor developments and ensure opinion exchanges with our Afghan colleagues," Lavrov said.