CSTO launches joint military drill in Kazakhstan

24th August 2006 - The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) launched a joint military drill in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.

The exercise, codenamed "border-2006," was staged near the western city of Aktau, Mangistau on the Caspian Sea.

Some 2,500 troops, 60 armored vehicles, 50 cannons, 40 military aircraft and 14 warships from the seven CSTO member states took part in the military exercise.

Expected to last through Sunday, the drill was aimed to improve the capacities of the member states' military command.

The CSTO last carried out a large-scale anti-terror drill codenamed "border-2005" in Tajikistan in the spring of 2005.

The military bloc, set up in 1992 to focus on anti-terrorism and counternarcotics programs, is made up of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, which rejoined the group in June this year after the withdrawal in 1999.