MOSCOW (Xinhua) — The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) does not plan to send peacekeepers to Kyrgyzstan; instead, the Russian-led security body will send advisors to the riot-hit country, CSTO Secretary-General Nikolai Bordyuzha said Thursday, news agencies reported.
According to the Interfax News Agency, Bordyuzha said, “A plan is being weighed to send specialists in planning and preparing operations to prevent mass disturbances, to track down organizers and to localize criminal groups provoking tensions. But no plans are in the making to send peacekeepers to Kyrgyzstan.”
Bordyuzha, however, provided no further details about what he called security “specialists” but suggested they could be used to track down those behind the five days of clashes between majority Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks that has killed a confirmed 191 people and injured many hundreds of others, RFE/RL reported.
The Kyrgyz interim government’s national security chief, Alik Orozov, said earlier on Thursday that Russia or Kazakhstan could make six to nine helicopters available for Kyrgyz law enforcement services. Kyrgyzstan’s interim leader, Roza Otunbaeva, appealed last week to Russia for military assistance to bring the ethnic fighting in the south of the country under control.
All CSTO countries except Belarus have supported the plan to restore stability in southern Kyrgyzstan, proposed by the secretaries of the CSTO Security Council following emergency consultations. Still, Belarus pledged to approve the plan on June 17, Orozov said. The CSTO’s members are Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
