DUSHANBE, May 25, Asia-Plus — Agenda of a May 25 meeting of the council of the CIS prime ministers in Dushanbe was in the center of discussion at a meeting of President Rahmonov with visiting CIS Executive Secretary Vladimir Rushailo in Dushanbe on May 24.
“Government heads from the CIS countries will discuss a progress of implementation of resolutions adopted at the CIS summit in Kazan on August 26, 2005,” Vladimir Rushailo told journalists following his meeting with President Rahmonov. According to him, it is planned to set up a working group for consideration of conceptual issues of reforming the CIS institutional bodies. “At present the CIS is acting in three directions – economic, cooperation, stability and security, expansion of cultural cooperation,” Rushailo noted.
Asked about the possible withdrawal of Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova from the CIS, Rushailo noted that there were legal documents determining such procedures and “we have not yet received official applications for outing the CIS from anybody.”
Answering questions about other organizations grouping the post-Soviet countries, the CIS executive secretary noted that GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova) was mostly aimed at development of transportation-communications infrastructure, the Eurasian Economic Community (EAEC) was an economic club dealing with economic cooperation, and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) dealt with security problems. “The CIS has all these components and efficiency of the CIS should be determined by heads of states that made up it,” Rushailo said.
