CSTO does not want to be semi-fraudulent in establishing contact with NATO

MOSCOW, Nov 25 (Interfax-AVN).  The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is not seeking shortcuts toward contacts with NATO but says that such cooperation would have been beneficial for both.

"We do not want any shortcuts. We do not want to trick or establish contacts with NATO in semi-fraudulent ways," CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha told reporters in Moscow on Thursday. Reporters asked whether the contacts were possible with the UN mediation.

"If they [NATO] take this interest, they will tell us about that. If not, we will continue to work separately," he said.

Meanwhile, the situation in Afghanistan shows that the absence of cooperation between the two organizations is harmful for the alliance, he said. "Judging by what is going on in Afghanistan, I think it is obvious that the absence of contacts harms NATO in the first turn. We could have been very helpful, especially in Afghanistan, but they have a different viewpoint to our deep regret," Bordyuzha said.

The absence of contacts inflicts certain damage on NATO and the CSTO, he said. "In my opinion, the absence of cooperation primarily harms member countries of NATO and the CSTO. If we had pooled our efforts in the suppression of drug trafficking from Afghanistan, I think our potential would have been very large," he said.

"Instead we keep playing political games," he noted.

"We stay absolutely cool. We are a self-sufficient organization. We have our military, law enforcement and foreign political potential," he said.

Cooperation with NATO "is not a matter of prestige or a vital goal for the CSTO," Bordyuzha said. "There is nothing but a wish to increase the efficiency of our work. We will wait until this or the next NATO administration matures for this cooperation."

In the first turn, this is a question "of better security of member states of the CSTO and NATO," he said.

The CSTO is elaborating a set of measures which will provide its adequate reaction to the possible escalation of tensions in Afghanistan after the pullout of coalition forces, he noted.

"We want Afghanistan to ensure internal stability and national accord and take the path of peace, in particular, with the assistance of law enforcers. There is no success with that so far," Bordyuzha said.

So the CSTO "is considering measures, which may be taken in the case of tensions in Afghanistan after the pullout of a substantial part of coalition forces from Afghanistan and the negative effect of these tensions on CSTO member states," he said.

"We are preparing for possible developments of the sort after 2014," he concluded.