... players, including Russia and Kazakhstan, and their integration associations.
Question:
What is Moscow’s view on the further development of bilateral integration processes, including Russia-Kazakhstan interaction within the framework of the EAEU, the CSTO and the SCO? What are your priorities for the near future?
Sergey Lavrov:
You are aware that the idea of the Eurasian Economic Union was proposed by First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, who put it forth back in 1994 during a lecture ...
... multiple fronts. Russia's drug policy needs to involve a wider concept of security that not only encompasses the threat to national security, but also the human and social threat of drugs. Intense cooperation with Central Asia and Afghanistan through the SCO and CSTO is essential, as is strict border policing and law enforcement. Nonetheless, this no-tolerance policy for the supply side of the drug trade needs to be complemented with a softer approach for the demand side at home. To dwell on the social and economic ...
... States. Surprisingly, the main antagonist in the proceedings for Russia turned out to be Armenia, which tried to force Russia into taking a clear pro-Armenian position in the conflict. Yerevan is unhappy about military-technical cooperation between Moscow and Baku and the lack of consensus on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict within the CSTO and the EAEU
Russia’s policy in the post-Soviet space has received almost no support from the global community.
The process of change that is happening with regard to the political elites in the post-Soviet authoritarian regimes has the potential ...
... community on the firm basis of international law and unified integrated approaches.
As far the CSTO is concerned, in 2007 the two organizations signed a memorandum of understanding that provides a firm foundation for combined work. Top figures of the CIS, CSTO and SCO regularly meet, with the most recent event held last fall in Moscow. By exchanging information and views on situation in Eurasia the three organizations obtain a better picture of the emerging challenges and security threats, and also take pinpointed ...
... on the issue of Russian allies’ loyalty to Moscow.
Another recent trend that could be mentioned in relation to regional cooperation in the former Soviet Union is the ambition to link cooperation in various regional formats. For instance, when CSTO and SCO were still in the process of formation, and EEU was not yet fully established, each of these organizations was to a greater extent focused on internal development processes; but lately the appeals to join the potential of several organizations to ...
... assistance to former Soviet republics via the CSTO, and interaction with Western forces in Afghanistan in order to ensure a effective response to extremist provocation and to prevent terrorism spreading beyond Afghanistan’s borders. Moreover, the SCO and CSTO would only gain from making a joint statement on cooperation and assistance to Afghanistan. Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan enjoy membership in both organizations, which makes cooperation on Afghanistan much easier through the joint ...
... Russian diplomacy.
The failures of Russia in the "Uzbek direction" are part of an overall trend. The current Russian policy in Central Asia was formed under the influence of diplomatic successes of mid-2000s. In the period from 2003 to 2007, Moscow succeeded in creating CSTO, return to this organization Uzbekistan, sign lucrative contracts for the transit of Turkmen gas and to start negotiations on the establishment of the Customs Union. A series of successes gave rise to the idea that the Central Asian states were doomed ...
