CSTO to Finalize Tajik-Afghan Border Security Plan by End of Year

The program by the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to strengthen the Tajik-Afghan border will be adopted by the end of 2024, the Secretary-General of the CSTO, Imangali Tasmagambetov, announced. “Continuous work is underway to develop and implement specific measures to strengthen our security space. The most striking example is the CSTO Targeted Interstate Program to Strengthen the Tajik-Afghan Border, scheduled for adoption this year,” he said. According to him, the CSTO is characterized by open and honest discussions of all current issues, without exception, in the mode of constructive and “soft” alliance and decision-making strictly in compliance with the principle of consensus. “And in terms of fundamental issues of mutual support and collective security, we act exclusively consolidated,” Tasmagambetov said. “Our common task for the foreseeable future is to strengthen the role and significance of the organization in the changing system of international relations while maintaining a commitment to established principles and priorities and at the same time corresponding to the modern context of regional and global security,” he added. The first decision to strengthen the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border was made in 2013. The program itself consists of three stages, the first of which is designed for five years. The state border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan is part of the southern border of the so-called CIS and post-Soviet territory. The total length of its border is 1374.2 km, of which 1184.4 km is a river border and 189.8 km is an island border.