MINSK, 10 December (BelTA) – Minsk will host an additional session of an expert group to reconcile the draft agreement on a joint engineering department for humanitarian demining in the armed forces of the CIS. The session will be held in the CIS Executive Committee headquarters on 10-11 December, BelTA learned from the press service of the CIS Executive Committee.
The draft agreement was drawn by Russia's Ministry of Defense in collaboration with the Secretariat of the CIS Defense Ministers Council. “The document lays out fundamental approaches to formation, use and completion of activities of the joint engineering department for humanitarian demining and defines the status of the servicemen as they are taking part in the humanitarian demining activities,” the press service informed.
This engineering department is to comprise permanent national engineering departments that have a permanent base and get together to perform humanitarian demining tasks. Each CIS member state will decide what resources and manpower will be seconded for the joint engineering department. Each participating state will be responsible for the training and resourcing of its national engineering department, including its movement and use as part of the joint department.
