BAKU. May 26 (Interfax-AVN) - Azerbaijan's authorities believe the establishment of peacekeeping forces under the regional organization GUUAM is not on the agenda.
"GUUAM is more an economic organization than a military one," Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Vilayat Quliyev told Interfax- Military News Agency on Monday.
In 1997, Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova set up GUAM, and after Uzbekistan joined it in 1999, the organization changed its name to GUUAM.
NATO representatives have repeatedly suggested establishing peacekeeping forces in the South Caucasus. Georgia has been the most fervent advocate of this proposal and has even confirmed its willingness to set up such a unit.
"Specific steps have already been taken towards setting up forces that could become guarantors of security within GUUAM," Georgian Chief-of-Staff Dzhoni Pirtskhalaishvili has said.
"A joint peacekeeping battalion could be set up at the initial stage," he said.
Pirtskhalaishvili stressed that "members of another alliance existing on the territory of the former Soviet Union - the Collective Security Treaty Organization - have collective peacekeeping forces and are trying to expand them."
The Collective Security Treaty Organization brings together Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.