St Petersburg State University conference on regional security discussed the role of the SCO and the CSTO in ensuring security in Eurasia

The role of the SCO and the CSTO in ensuring security in Eurasia was addressed at the 12th international conference Eurasian Arc of Instability and Regional Security Issues from East Asia to North Africa: Results of 2021 co-organized by the St Petersburg State University and the Ho Chi Minh Institute.

Conference participants included representatives of the SCO, the CSTO and the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly: Bakhtier Khakimov, Special Envoy of the President of the Russian Federation for SCO Affairs, Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Mikhail Krotov, Plenipotentiary Representative of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation to the CSTO PA; Igor Panarin, representative of the CSTO Secretariat; Igor Kefeli, CSTO PA expert and RANEPA professor; scholars and experts.

In particular, Mikhail Krotov, Plenipotentiary Representative of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation to the CSTO PA, considered the reasons of aggravation of military and political situation in the CSTO area of responsibility and on the borders of the CSTO area of responsibility in 2021, ways of its stabilization and counteraction to challenges and threats.

For instance, through CSTO partners’ support of Russia’s efforts to counter NATO’s eastward expansion efforts; strengthening the cooperation between the SCO, EAEU and CSTO in using military, technical and political methods together with economic and humanitarian ones; improving the CSTO regulatory framework, including capitalizing on the experience of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, which passed a resolution granting the President of the Russian Federation the right to send troops abroad without lengthy coordination with the Federal Assembly.

For several years, the conference has been considered a research mechanism of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and its organizers are members of the Expert Advisory Board of the CSTO PA Council.