Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov held talks in Kyrgyzstan on Thursday amid preparations for a four-nation military exercise in the Central Asian country involving Russian special forces and aircraft, Kyrgyz media said.
"There's a real threat of terrorist incursions in the Central Asian countries - we will test all our collective rapid reaction capabilities," Ivanov told state television after a meeting of the defence ministers of Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan together with Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev.
The exercise in the north of this mountainous republic marks a stepping up of defence co-operation between Moscow and the Central Asian republics that broke from Soviet rule in 1991.
It follows a series of terror attacks in Kyrgyzstan's neighbour Uzbekistan and warnings of continued instability in nearby Afghanistan.
Ivanov was speaking ahead of field exercises on Friday due to involve more than 2,000 personnel as well as aircraft from southern Russia and from a Russian airbase near Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan's defence ministry said earlier.
Russia opened a new air base at Kant in Kyrgyzstan last autumn, just a few kilometres (miles) from another used by US-led forces to support operations in nearby Afghanistan.
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