A regular session of the CIS Council of Heads of Government was held in the Kazakh capital of Astana on October 28.
Media reports say the event is attended by Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Alikhan Smailov, Prime Minister of Azerbaijan Ali Asadov, Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko, Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Kyrgyzstan Akylbek Japarov, Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail Mishustin, Prime Minister of Tajikistan Qohir Rasoulzoda, Prime Minister of Uzbekistan Abdulla Aripov, Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia Megri Grigoryan, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkmenistan Hojamyrat Geldimyradow.
The meeting reportedly addressed a number of issues related to cooperation between the CIS member nations.
The meeting has resulted in signing of a package of cooperation documents. Belarus BelTA says the meeting participants adopted more than 20 documents.
In particular, the heads of government signed a cooperation agreement on prevention and management of pandemics and other public-health emergencies. According to the CIS Executive Committee, this document will help create a CIS system of monitoring and preventing pandemics and other public-health emergencies. The document reportedly spells out the procedure for helping CIS countries deal with such emergencies, including through the involvement of mobile anti-epidemic units of the Commonwealth countries.
They also approved a joint action plan to counter antimicrobial resistance, which is reportedly based on the analysis of the situation in the CIS states.
The heads of government also approved the cooperation concept in science, engineering and technology and the concept of digital transformation of the chemical complex of the CIS member states, as well as action plans for their implementation.
In addition, documents were signed on the interstate radio navigation program for 2023-2026, as well as on the interstate program “Reclamation of the territories of states affected by uranium mining”.
The heads of government approved the regulation on the operator of the CIS innovative cooperation program until 2030 and the regulation on the accreditation and participation of legal entities and individuals in this program.
They also approved the action plan to hold the Year of the Russian Language as the language of interethnic communication in the Commonwealth of Independent States in 2023.
The CIS Executive Committee press center says the meeting participants also passed a plan of priority actions in the field of humanitarian cooperation for 2023-2024.
The heads of government reportedly also approved funding of the further development of the CIS unified air defense system.
The CIS member nations will keep financing the interstate program to support war veterans who took part in local conflicts and their family members in 2021-2025. Adjustments were made to the work of the Soviet-Afghan War Veterans Affairs Committee under the CIS Council of Heads of Government. The Committee will continue in 2020-2024 the search for the servicemen who went missing during the war in Afghanistan in 1979-1989, the search for burial sites, exhumation, identification of the remains and their reburial in the homeland.
This was the 80th meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of Government since 1991. The previous meeting was held via video link in May. Kazakhstan holds chairmanship this year.
The CIS Council of Heads of Government was established on December 21, 1991. The council is the second major body in the CIS after the CIS Council of Heads of State, and consists of the prime ministers of all member states. The council coordinates the CIS member states'' cooperation in economic, social and other areas of their common interests, and adopts corresponding decisions through consensus. The session of the CIS Council of Heads of Government is convened twice a year, normally in winter and autumn. Extraordinary meetings are summoned on the initiative of the government of a member state.
Founded in 1991 as a regional association of former Soviet republics, the CIS now consists of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Ukraine and Turkmenistan are associate members of the organization. Georgia pulled out quitted of the organization in 2009. Ukraine formally ended its participation in CIS statutory bodies in 2018, although it had stopped participating in the organization much earlier.
