A meeting of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the CIS countries took place in the Uzbek city of Samarkand on April 14.
According to Uzbek Foreign ministry, the meeting was attended foreign ministers of Uzbekistan (Bakhtiyor Saidov), Armenia (Ararat Mirzoyan), Belarus (Sergey Aleinik), Kazakhstan (Murat Nurtleu), Kyrgyz Republic (Jeenbek Kulubayev), Russia (Sergey Lavrov), and Tajikistan (Sirojiddin Muhriddin).
Azerbaijan was represented by Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov and Turkmenistan was represented by First Deputy Foreign Minister Vepa Hajiyev.
The CIS Secretary General Sergey Lebedev also participated in the meeting.
During the meeting, the parties reportedly exchanged views on further expansion of multifaceted cooperation within the CIS, as well as on topical regional and international issues.
The Uzbek side emphasized the importance of further efforts to implement the initiatives of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev within the framework of the CIS aimed at building up trade and economic cooperation, industrial and technological partnership, cultural and humanitarian ties. The relevance of the implementation of new joint projects in the development of digital transformation, green economy, tourism and youth was noted.
At the meeting, information was heard on the implementation of the Plan for multi-level inter-MFA consultations of the CIS member states and the Action Program to enhance partnership between the Foreign Ministries of the Commonwealth Member States in 2022.
Draft documents submitted for further consideration by the Council of Heads of Government and the Council of Heads of State of the Commonwealth Member States, including the announcement of the Samarkand as the Cultural Capital of the Commonwealth and the Tashkent as the Youth Capital of the CIS in 2024, were considered and approved.
It was decided to hold the next meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States in October 2023 in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek.
The Council of Foreign Minister of the CIS Member Nations is the main executive body ensuring cooperation in the field of foreign policy activities of the CIS member states on the matters of mutual interest, adopting decisions during the period between the meetings of the Council of the CIS Heads of State, the Council of the CIS Heads of Government and by their orders. The first session of the Council took place in August 1993.
