MOSCOW. April 28 (Interfax-AVN) - The Monday summit of the Collective Security Treaty is extremely important from the point of view of the treaty's potential expansion, a prominent Russian lawmaker told Interfax-Military News Agency.
"I do not rule out that the Collective Security Treaty will expand, but in the end, everything depends on the efficiency of the mechanism that will be set up at the Dushanbe summit," said Andrei Nikolayev, defense committee chairman in the State Duma lower house of parliament.
It is important for the treaty not to follow the way of military bodies of the Commonwealth of Independent States, he said.
"The nations establishing the CIS proclaimed establishment of a single defense space and a single system of state border protection, but none of that has been implemented in full," Nikolayev said.
"We have made much progress in pooling state border guard efforts, but progress in the establishment of a single defense space has been more moderate," the lawmaker said.
If the nations signatories to the Collective Security Treaty are now ready for maximum integration, this may set an example for other nations, not only members of the CIS, he went on.
"Placement of Russian aircraft forces in Armenia and Kyrgyzstan is a prototype of coalition forces mentioned in the charter of the organization," Nikolayev noted.
"I think that coalition forces mentioned in the treaty will be established to accomplish specific missions. Permanent elements of these forces will indeed exist, I mean control points, communication systems, and basic elements ensuring accomplishment of technical and logistics support missions. But the rest will be established in accordance with specific situation. At the same time, I think that operation and combat training system for troops and staffs must be linked to specific regions," he said.
Speaking about subordination of coalition forces, this issue is under consideration, Nikolayev said.
"I am sure that subordination must exist in the framework of the system outlined by the treaty. There may be national subordination. But let me say it again that as long as this is a treaty on collective security, there must be coalition command," he noted.
"I believe that this is the system that can be economical enough and ensure national security of each participant," Nikolayev concluded.