A number of countries have expressed interest in joining the Parliamentary Assembly (PA) of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) as observers, Russian lower house speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on Monday
BISHKEK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th May, 2019) A number of countries have expressed interest in joining the Parliamentary Assembly (PA) of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) as observers, Russian lower house speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on Monday.
A Russian delegation began its two-day visit to Kyrgyzstan on Sunday to take part in a CSTO PA Council meeting in Bishkek. The session focuses on the harmonization of the national laws of CSTO member states, among other matters. Members of the CSTO PA Council also met with the president of Kyrgyzstan, Sooronbay Jeenbekov.
"Today, you stressed the need to expand the coalition and attract those who wanted to act as observers of the [CSTO] Parliamentary Assembly. This [matter] is particularly important because we have the requests from several countries that have asked that they be excepted as observers," Volodin said at the meeting with Jeenbekov.
The CSTO was established on the basis of the Collective Security Treaty, signed by members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in 1992. The organization comprises Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.
At the CSTO PA Council meeting, the president of Armenia's parliament, Ararat Mirzoyan, said his country would be glad to host the next session in the Armenian capital city Yerevan.
Volodin said the next meeting would take place in October or November and that the exact date would be announced later.
