MOSCOW. May 22 (Interfax-AVN) - The newly appointed chief of the Collective Security Treaty Organization's Joint Staff, Col. Gen. Saken Zhasuzakov, will assume duties on May 24, the CSTO's press secretary, Vladimir Zainetdinov, told Interfax-AVN on Tuesday.
"Pyotr Tikhonovsky, the chief of the Belarusian armed forces' General Staff and first deputy defense minister of Belarus, who previously held the post of chief of the CSTO's Joint Staff, will hand over his duties and flag over to Zhasuzakov at a ceremony in Moscow, which will be attended by CSTO General Secretary Nikolai Bordyuzha.
After the ceremony, the Joint Staff's deputy head, Maj. Gen. Vladimir Berezhnoi, will speak about the Joint Staff's main tasks and functions. The chiefs of the Joint Staff's divisions will deliver reports on the development of the Collective Operational Reaction Force (KSOR) and of the Peacekeeping Force, and also on the implementation of the joint combat training plan for 2012 and preparations for a KSOR drill in Armenia in September, Zainetdinov said.
Zhasuzakov was appointed to his new post by the CSTO's Collective Security Council on May 12 2012 for the inter-session period, and he will combine it with that of Kazakhstan's first deputy defense minister and chairman of the country's Chiefs of Staff Committee.