CSTO summit to consider rapid deployment base in Kirgizia.

BISHKEK, July 31 (Itar-Tass) -- The informal summit of the Collective
Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which unites seven former Soviet
republics, will consider on Friday the establishment of a military base in
Kirgizia for its rapid deployment force.

"This topic will be discussed," Kremlin foreign policy aide Sergei
Prikhodko said, specifying it will be a joint rather than Russian base.
"The base is necessary in case of certain decisions in the CSTO
framework, it is not intended for any of our issues," he said.
Kirgiz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who turns 60 on Saturday,
suggested it might be a training center for Russian and Kirgiz military
rather than a proper military base.
Prikhodko said "specific attention will be paid to the implementation
of the agreement on the rapid deployment force signed in Moscow on June 14
at the session of the Collective Security Council, and the upcoming joint
exercises of the collective force in August-October will be a major step
on the path of its creation."
Another Kremlin official said the issue of the U.S. base in Manas in
Kirgizia will hardly highlight the summit, as Russia has no claims to it
until it is used in compliance with the mandate to transit cargoes for the
international coalition in Afghanistan.
"It is the issue of the mandate. As long as the declared mandate of a
transit center corresponds to the real designation, there are no reasons
for our concern. If the base is used for other purposes, then we shall
raise the question," he said.
President Dmitry Medvedev will arrive to the summit in Cholpon-Ata on
Lake Issyk-Kul from Tajikistan to join his counterparts from Armenia,
Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Five thousand police and interior troops will provide security of the
two-day summit. Local residents were told to refrain from driving in the
area and from pasturing cattle along the road linking Cholpon-Ata with the
nearby airport.