CSTO to agree on use of new weapons

Countries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) will jointly counter threats arising from the use of new types of weapons in military conflicts. This will involve interstate cooperation on studying such weapons, exchanging information and data about their use. The agreement is scheduled to be discussed on Oct․ 7 in Saint Petersburg at a meeting of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly’s Standing Committee on Defense and Security, committee head Anatoly Vyborny told Izvestia.

“Currently, intelligence and sabotage activity by foreign intelligence services and by terrorist and extremist groups against Russia and our CSTO neighbors has intensified. It is important for us to cooperate closely and to exchange technologies and expert and intelligence data on modern weapons in order to stay one step ahead of the threats,” the lawmaker said, adding that parliaments of CSTO member states coordinate their actions together with the relevant agencies.

Izvestia has seen the latest draft of a “model agreement on cooperation between CSTO members in the use of new types of weapons and technologies.” In the document the organization’s members reaffirm their commitment to universally recognized principles of international law (the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, as well as CIS and CSTO treaties). The agreement places special emphasis on defining the concept of “new types of weapons.” It proposes to define them as “devices and objects intended to defeat the enemy during an armed conflict, as well as systems and instruments of current and future scientific and technological advances used as means of warfare, including non‑lethal, psycho‑physical and other effects on the enemy intended to force them to peace.”