MOSCOW. Oct 14 (Interfax-AVN) - The main purpose of the current Interaction 2009 exercise of the Collective Operational Reaction Force (CORF) of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is to test CORF's combat efficiency, CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha said on Wednesday.
"We aren't setting ourselves the task of showing the might of CORF because it's the first exercise, one that will simply enable us to ensure the coordination of CORF units in combat and see how it'll act in various circumstances, in dealing with various tasks," Bordyuzha told Interfax-AVN.
The main purpose of Interaction 2009, which brings together 14,000 troops, is "to learn to jointly carry out tasks that the heads of state will be setting to those units," he said. "But let me repeat once again: it's the first exercise, and it's rather a research effort."
Interaction 2009 started off at the Matybulak training ground in Kazakhstan's Zhambyl region on October 2 and will have its so-called "active phase" in Kazakhstan on Friday.
Bordyuzha, the heads of state of the CSTO member countries, and the secretaries of the security councils and defense ministers of those countries are expected to watch the active phase.