The meeting of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly Council at the Tauride Palace was chaired by the Speaker of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation and Russian State Duma Speaker Sergey Naryshkin.

“This CSTO meeting is taking place in a dire international situation. An in-depth assessment of the global situation was presented on 23 December 2014 by the heads of CSTO member states. In the statement, they formulated the key courses of action relating to the fight against the growing tendencies of multiple threats on the path to a sustainable collective security system”, said Naryshkin.

CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha spoke of the decisions made at the Collective Security Treaty Organisation session in December 2014 and the Organisation’s activities relating to the dynamically developing situation.

Deputy Speaker Veroljub Arsic addresses the assembly saying that the Republic of Serbia strongly supports the CSTO’s key courses of action viz. keeping the peace, international and regional stability, respecting independence and territorial integrity and sovereignty of the member states, developing multilateral political cooperation, countering international terrorism and extremism, illegal trade in narcotics and other substances threatening people’s lives and security. He reminded the participants that the Republic of Serbia had taken over the chairmanship of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), stressing that it would spare no efforts in the maintenance of peace and stability and believes that the success of the action lies in intensive cooperation and dialogue among the member states and achieving consensus on the organisation’s significant decisions.

“I am proud to say we have already achieved some results in this regard. Since we took over the chairmanship of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, our high-quality work and honest efforts have resulted in agreements with 57 member states on issues of importance”, said Deputy Speaker Arsic. He added that the modern world presents us with challenges to peace and stability to which we need to come up with adequate responses. Arsic stressed that joint efforts, accompanied by intensive communication and cooperation, can help preserve stability and ensure the requisites for further development and progress, also pointing out the importance of establishing and strengthening cooperation between the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and CSTO Parliamentary Assembly. Arsic said that the two organisations share similar goals and if they cooperated they could achieve better results as regards the realisation of these goals.

The CSTO PA Council meeting was attended by CSTO member states. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Republic of Serbia took part as observers. The CSTO PA Council meeting was for the first time attended by a representative of Cuba.