CSTO Secretary-General Visits Uzbekistan
October 30, 2006
Uzbek Defense Minister Ruslan Mirzaev (file photo) (RFE/RL)
Russia's Interfax-AVN military news agency says Bordyuzha will discuss preparations for upcoming CSTO meetings in Belarus.
Talks will also focus on the security situation in Central Asia. Uzbekistan resumed its membership in the CSTO on the sidelines of a CIS summit in August.
It left the organization in 1999 as part of what observers then described as efforts to redirect its foreign policy toward the West.
Its readmission into the military alliance coincided with a cooling of its relations with Europe and the United States following last year's military crackdown in Andijon.
Besides Uzbekistan and Russia, the CSTO is composed of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
(Interfax-AVN, press-uz.info)