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Defence pact to balance NATO

MOSCOW: The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a Russia-led defence pact of former Soviet states, have signed a defence cooperation pact dubbed a “Russian-Chinese NATO.

The SCO, which comprises Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and the CSTO, which groups Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia and Belorussia, signed a memorandum of cooperation on Friday on the sidelines of a CSTO summit in Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan. China is the only member of the SCO, which does not participate in the CSTO.

The memorandum, signed by the general secretaries of the SCO and the CSTO, “provides for expanding cooperation between the two organisations in security, the fight against trans-national crime and illegal drug trafficking,” SCO General Secretary Bulat Nurgaliyev said at the signing ceremony. Now the issues will be solved more efficiently.

CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha expressed confidence that CSTO-CSO cooperation will be effective “in very many dimensions.” He denied the tie-up was an “attempt to rival or counteract NATO.

The SCO-CSTO cooperation agreement was signed less than two months after the Shanghai pact focussed on security issues, holding the first major joint war games and signing a friendship treaty which offered security guarantees to member-states.

A leading Russian business paper, RBK Daily, said the SCO-CSTO tie-up could signal the emergence of a major military-political bloc, a “Russian-Chinese NATO” that will challenge NATO, not only in Central Asia, but throughout the Eurasian continent.

The CSTO leaders decided on Saturday to set up the alliance’s peace-keeping force, which according to Mr. Bordyuzha, would be ready to undertake U.N.-mandated peace missions “anywhere in the world.

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