Chief of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Joint Staff, Colonel-General Anatoly Sidorov, heading the Organization task force has arrived in Tajikistan to monitor the situation along Tajikistan’s common border with Afghanistan, Izvestiya’s website reported on July 6, citing the CSTO press center.  

While in Tajikistan, the CSTO task force members are scheduled to visit southern regions of Tajikistan and hold talks with senior representatives of the Ministry of Defense and the Main Border Guard Directorate of the State Committee for National Security and other relevant agencies of Tajikistan.  

Sidorov reportedly noted that the main purpose of the visit to Tajikistan was for the CSTO task force to monitor the situation along the Tajik-Afghan border and prepare proposals on joint measures in the framework of the CSTO. 

Recall, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said yesterday that Moscow stood ready to provide Tajikistan with any assistance it needed.

“It all depends on how the situation develops in northern Afghanistan. The situation there is quite tense, since, according to some sources, up to 70 percent of the border with Tajikistan is controlled by the Taliban,” Rudenko said, according to the Interfax report.