Speaking before the informal summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev said it will discuss how to mitigate the impact of US. military forces' pullout from Afghanistan on the region. The organization also includes Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, but the Uzbek leader failed to attend the talks in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana.

The bloc has been widely seen as Moscow-driven attempt to create a counterweight to NATO, but internal divisions have hampered the development of a full-fledged security alliance.