ISTANBUL
Kyrgyzstan on Thursday hosted a leaders’ summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (OSCE) in its capital, Bishkek.
The military alliance held narrow and expanded meetings of its Collective Security Council with the participation of almost all of its members’ heads of state, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, who arrived in the Kyrgyz capital on a three-day state visit on Tuesday.
Only Armenia was not represented at the summit, which announced it had suspended its participation in CSTO activities back in 2024 due to its dissatisfaction with the alliance’s response to its security concerns.
Separately, a meeting bringing together foreign ministers, defense ministers, and security council secretaries from CSTO member states was held ahead of the Collective Security Council meeting.
Following the event, CSTO members inked 16 documents, including a Collective Security Council declaration and a statement on combating drug trafficking, according to a statement by the Kremlin.
The meeting took place under Kyrgyzstan’s chairmanship of the organization. Russia will assume the alliance’s chairmanship as of Jan. 1, 2026.
The CSTO is a military alliance formed in 2002, which consists of Russia and the former Soviet states of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
