On December 19, the Armenian Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense Edward Nalbandian and Seyran Ohanian and the Secretary of the Armenian National Security Council (NSC) Arthur Baghdasaryan took part in the joint meeting of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, the Council of Ministers of Defense and the Committee of Secretaries of Security Councils of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

In the course of the meeting the agenda of the upcoming meeting of the Collective Security Council, to be held on December 20, and the issues to be discussed were approved, which are aimed at the further strengthening of the Organization and the cooperation in its frames.

The Ministers touched upon a number of draft documents related to the development and strengthening of CSTO's military component, the development of collective response system in cases of emergencies, Uzbekistan's membership to the Organization and predictions over the development of situation in Afghanistan.

The CSTO's Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense and the Secretaries of the Security Councils discussed the annual report of the Organization's Secretary-General, and issues related to cooperation in information, organization and financial spheres. The participants agreed on the place and timeframe of the next meeting of the CSTO's statutory bodies, as well.

The agenda of the meeting included issues related to the priorities of Kyrgyzstan's presidency over the CSTO next year, as well as the improvement of the collective security system, the optimization of military-economic and military-technical cooperation, the fight against terror and illegal turnover of drugs and emergency response, as well.

As a result of the meeting over a number of documents were signed which were presented to the approval of the Collective Security Council.

At the conclusion of the meeting the presidency of the CSTO Foreign Ministerial Council, the Defense Ministerial Council and the Committee of the National Security Council was passed from Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan.