BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

30/04/2008

NATO expansion necessitates Russia-Belarus coordination

MINSK, April 30 (Itar-Tass) - NATO's enlargement confirms the necessity of closer coordination of Russia and Belarus' actions in the military-political and military fields, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov stated here on Wednesday.

Speaking at joint meeting of senior Belarussian and Russian military officials, he said "we can state today that cooperation in the defense sector between the armed forces of our states continues to develop. At the same time, the process of NATO's expansion, the plans to field missile defense facilities and the aggravation of the situation in the Middle East confirms the necessity of closer coordination of our actions both in the military-political and military fields," Serdyukov said.

He expressed confidence that "the pooling of our potentials in the defense sphere is an important factor to neutralize any aggressive challenges or threats."

The minister noted "the active work by the defense ministries of our countries, based on the provisions of the program of actions by the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation on implementing the treaty to create the Union State."

Serdyukov expressed the hope that the productive discussion of the issues at the Wednesday meeting and the adoption of necessary decisions would contribute to the fulfillment of the tasks to create a system of armed protection of the Union State within the framework of single defense space.

For his part, Belarassian Defense minister Leonid Maltsev noted that "joint solution of defense policy issues create firm groundwork for building planned interaction and military cooperation which is implemented on the bilateral basis and within the Collective Security Treaty."

Since the last meeting of the joint board, the parties have continued the efforts toward implementing the provisions of the military doctrine of the Union State and creating military organization.

The meeting began with a procedural issue. Maltsev said the Russian defense minister had proposed to "include retired Air Force Marshall Alexander Yefimov in the joint board. Yefimov is chairman of the committee of the all-Russian public organization of war veterans and military service.

"We supported the Russian initiative, and, for our part, included in the joint board the chairman of the Belarussian Union of Officers, retired Lt-Gen Yevgeny Mukulchik," Maltsev said.

The press service of the Belarussian Defense Ministry said the Wednesday meeting would focus on the intergovernmental agreement between Belarus and Russia on joint technical support of the regional group of troops, and the bilateral agreement on interaction in the field of electronic countermeasures.

Source:

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=12636990&PageNum=0

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