CHOLPON ATA (Kyrgyzstan), July 31 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arrived on Friday in Kyrgyzstan for an informal regional security treaty organization summit.
The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit will take place on August 1-2 at Kyrgyzstan's Issyk-Kul resort.
The post-Soviet CSTO security bloc comprises Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Belarus is expected to join a CSTO agreement (signed on June 14) on the creation of a joint rapid reaction force.
Russia earlier offered to deploy a battalion-sized unit as part of the CSTO rapid reaction force in Kyrgyzstan's Batkens region.
The summit is expected to approve the opening of a new Russian military base in southern Kyrgyzstan.
Kyrgyzstan already hosts a Russian airbase in Kant and four other Russian military facilities. The airbase in Kant, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) outside the capital, Bishkek, was opened in 2003.
Some 250 Russian officers and 150 enlisted personnel from Russia's 5th Air Army are deployed at the base, as well as Su-25 Frogfoot strike aircraft and Mi-8 transport helicopters.
