The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) does not plan to conduct any joint exercises with the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), RIA Novosti quoted the Head of the Chancellery Department for Foreign Affairs of the Central Military Commission of the People’s Republic of China Tsy Govei [transliterated].

"At this time there are no plans as to the organization of joint military exercises between the CSTO and SCO," he said during the video-conference between the RIA Novosti press centre in Moscow and the Russian Information Centre in Beijing.

In the late July, CSTO Secretary-General Nikolai Bordyuzha said there was a possibility the two organization would hold joint exercises. He said this would meet the objectives of military cooperation, "but we still need to work out some of the issues concerning the interaction between the two organizations that both work for security in the same region".

The Chinese official said he had heard of the ideas and thoughts about the possibility of organising joint trainings "in different situations and at different levels". "Both organizations are international, and I believe the establishment of cooperation between the two is quite a normal process," he added.

However, he stressed that while CSTO was military organization acting on the territory of the CIS, SCO was not a military organsiation.

CSTO includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Members of the SCO are Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. SCO observers are Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan and India.