CSTO Parliamentary Assembly Celebrates Its 17th Anniversary

On November 16, the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly Celebrates Its 17th Anniversary.

On this day in 2006, a meeting of the members of the Council of the Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS Member States – members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization was held in St Petersburg, where it was decided to establish the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly.

“Interparliamentary interaction and cooperation within the CSTO dates back to 2000, when the session of the CSTO Collective Security Council in Bishkek formally established the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly in the Collective Security Treaty format as its parliamentary structure. It was tasked with developing model laws and recommendations to harmonize the legislation of the CSTO Member States,” said Sergei Pospelov, CSTO PA Executive Secretary.

Since 2000, the Assembly's parliamentarians, in addition to holding regular meetings to discuss issues of collective defence and security, have begun to monitor the military and political situation in all regions of collective security.

On May 14, 2002, at the Moscow session of the CSTO, a decision was made to transform the Treaty into a fully-fledged international organization: the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Four years later began the discussions about the formalization of the Organization’s parliamentary component.

On June 23, 2006, the session of the CSTO Collective Security Council in Minsk determined the need to develop the parliamentary dimension of the CSTO within the framework of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly.

On November 16, 2006, a meeting of the chairpersons of the CIS parliaments that are CSTO members adopted a resolution on the establishment of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO PA). At that time, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization was headed by Boris Gryzlov, Chairman of the State Duma.

At present, the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly is chaired by Vyacheslav Volodin, Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation. 

As you may recall, the Member States of the Collective Security Treaty Organization are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. The presidency of the Organization passes in alphabetical order. In 2023, the CSTO will be chaired by the Republic of Belarus.