The Kazakh Senate approved the law ratifying the Protocol to introduce changes to the Agreement on peacekeeping activities of the Collective Security Treaty Organization of October 6, 2007, Kazinform correspondent reports.

«Kazakhstani military personnel have been participating in peacekeeping activities over the last 30 years. Our peacekeepers took part in over 500 missions in countries such as Nepal, West Sahara, Ivory Coast, Lebanon. More than nine thousand our soldiers served on the Tajik-Afghan border, protecting the borders of the Commonwealth,» said Bibigul Zheksenbay at the plenary session of the Senate.

The Protocol to introduce changes to the Agreement on peacekeeping activities of the Collective Security Treaty Organization was signed on September 16, 2021, in Dushanbe at the Collective Security Council meeting.

The document’s aim is to specify procedures for the use of peacekeeping forces of the Organization in peacekeeping missions under the aegis of the UN outside the territory of the CSTO member states.

Within the Protocol, the notion of coordinating state is introduced as well as the Organization’s collective peacekeeping forces are established under the aegis of the coordinating state to join UN peacekeeping missions. The coordinating state is designated by the CSC to ensure full deployment of collective peacekeeping forces, in particular to tackle logistics, financial, and transport issues.

The Protocol’s ratification is expected to result in improved legal framework for peacekeeping activities of the CSTO, addressing organizational issues and issues of comprehensive deployment of collective peacekeeping forces in UN peacekeeping missions, as well as strengthening cooperation within the Organization.