Tajik President Emomali Rahmon participated in an informal meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State that took place in Moscow on December 26.
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 participated in the meeting, which discussed issues related to summing up the Russian presidency in the CIS in 2017.
CIS leaders also exchanged views on further expansion of cooperation between the CIS member nations in various fields.
The main attention was reportedly focused on bringing down barriers in the movement of goods and services and facilitating customs procedures.
This year trade between the CIS nations has grown significantly. According to the data for the first ten months of this year, it has grown more than one-fourth (25.7 percent) to reach almost 117 billion U.S. dollars. Trade between the CIS and third countries has reportedly grown almost 24 percent.
In a statement delivered at the meeting, Tajik President drew attention of his CIS counterparts to the latest developments in Afghanistan, which is one of the main themes if international and regional agendas of the day, according to the Tajik president’s official website.
Tajik leader also noted that Tajikistan coms out for further expansion of cooperation in addressing global threats and challenges for the purpose of providing regional security.
Tajikistan will assume the rotating CIS chairmanship in 2018. Dwelling on this issue, Emomali Rahmon outlined issues related to providing security of the external borders of the CIS including its southern borders, successive implementation of programs and plans aiming to promote further expansion of economic and humanitarian cooperation between the CIS nations as priorities of Tajikistan’s rotating chairmanship in the CIS.
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.
