Under decisions made at a meeting of the CIS Council of Heads in Sochi yesterday, the 2018 CIS summit will be held in Dushanbe in September and the powers of the CIS Executive Secretary Sergey Lebedev are prolonged by two years.
Presided over by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Sochi summit brought together the presidents of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Kyrgyzstan was represented by its prime minister, as President Almazbek Atambayev is involved in preparations for the presidential election due on October 15.
The summit’s agenda envisaged behind-closed-doors and wider meetings and the signing of final documents.
The summit participants reportedly exchanged views on key issues of cooperation within the Commonwealth. Special attention was focused on further steps to boost the efficiency of the organization, its executive structures and sectoral agencies.
Tajikistan will assume the rotating CIS chairmanship and Dushanbe will host the next annual CIS summit set for September 2018. Tajik President Emomali Rahmon delivered a speech at the expanded meeting, speaking about the work Tajikistan is going to do to strengthen the organization.
Azeri APA news agency reports that at the end of the summit, the CIS leaders signed eighteen documents which include “Decision on the CIS Presidency”, “Protocol decision on holding the next CIS summit”, “Decision on the Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee”, “Concept of Cooperation in Combating Corruption”, “Agreement on the exchange of information in the field of combating terrorism and other manifestations of extremism, as well as their financing”, “Decision on declaration of 2019 as a Year of Book in CIS area”, “Decision on declaration of 2020 as a Year of the 75th Anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War in 1941-45s in CIS area”, etc.
Meanwhile, Russian RBC reports that CIS Executive Secretary Sergey Lebedev said that Ukraine had practically stopped its participation in the CIS activities. Ukraine has stopped paying membership dues while it remains member nation of the CIS, Lebedev was quoted as saying.
Established on December 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional organization. It now consists of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. Georgia pulled out of the organization in 2009.
