SHCHUCHINSK, Kazakhstan. June 9 (Interfax-AVN) - The Southern Shield of the Commonwealth exercises will be held in Central Asia in 2003, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said at a Monday news conference after a meeting of the CIS Defense Ministers.
"The exercises will be held within the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organization," he noted.
The Collective Security Treaty Organization was set up at the Dushanbe summit of the Armenian, Belarussian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Russian and Tajik presidents on April 28, 2003.
Similar CIS exercises are planned for the first half of 2004.
"This will involve training for a joint rebuff to international terrorist organizations," the minister said.
"An agreement will be signed within a month or two to legalize the Russian airbase at the Kant airfield in Kyrgyzstan," Ivanov said.
"The airbase will start functioning by the end of the year," Ivanov said.