By IANS/RIA Novosti,
Moscow : The post-Soviet security bloc Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) will offer emergency assistance to law-enforcement agencies in Kyrgyzstan, where more than 138 people have died in four days of ethnic clashes.
“They have enough strength for today, but do not have enough equipment, helicopters, ground transportation, logistics and even gasoline, oil and lubricants,” CSTO secretary general Nikolai Bordyuzha said.
Bordyuzha told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that if approved “as the top-priority measure to restore order, this plan will work”.
“But we offer a range of measures – right up to assisting in joint activities to identify the organisers of the riots and bring them to justice,” he added.
The proposals adopted at the meeting of secretaries of the security councils of the CSTO members Monday will be passed on to the heads of states for approval.
Russian security council secretary Nikolai Patrushev said the Kyrgyz representative thoroughly briefed the participants on the situation in the country.
“There was an active exchange of views, it was an analysis of the situation in the country,” Patrushev told Medvedev.
The toll in the ethnic clashes has risen to 138, the AKIpress news agency reported late Monday citing data from health ministry.
The ministry added that over 1,750 were injured in clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbek groups that swept through the country’s southern cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad.
The CSTO said Kyrgyzstan’s current steps were insufficient to deal with the ethnic violence and urged the interim government to take all necessary additional steps to quickly restore order in the country.
The Russia-dominated security grouping includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.