Tajik President Emomali Rahmon is participating in an informal meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State that is taking place in Moscow today.
A source in the Tajik government says that Tajik leader is expected to hold a number of bilateral meetings with some of his CIS counterparts on the sidelines of the meeting.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin says the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, the President of Kyrgyzstan Sooronbai Jeenbekov, the President of Moldova Igor Dodon, the President of Russia Vladimir Putin, the President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon and the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoev are participating in the meeting, which is discussing issues related to summing up the Russian presidency in the CIS in 2017.
They are also exchanging views on further expansion of cooperation between the CIS member nations in various fields.
Recall, Tajikistan will assume the rotating CIS chairmanship in 2018.
An informal meeting of the Council of Heads of State is convened at the initiative of at least one of the CIS member states. An informal meeting is held in the format proposed by the state hosting the meeting, taking into account the possible wishes of the meeting participants.
Earlier, the meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Commonwealth of Independent States took place in Sochi, Russia on October 10-11.
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 A 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.
Established on December 8, 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.
