CIS Executive Secretary to discuss agenda of CIS jubilee summit

DUSHANBE, April 19 (Itar-Tass) - Issues of further development of the
Commonwealth of Independent States, as well as the agenda of and
preparations for the jubilee summit of the CIS will be the focal point of
the talks that the CIS Executive Secretary, Sergei Lebedev, is due to have
here Tuesday with President Imomali Rakhmon of Tajikistan.
Lebedev arrived on a three-day trip in Dushanbe Monday night.
According to Tajikistan's Deputy Foreign Minister Nizomiddin Zakhidov,
"the central place at /Lebedev's/ meetings with Tajikistani leaders will
be t taken up by the issues concerning Tajikistan's term of rotating
presidency of the CIS and preparations for the jubilee 20th summit."
All member-states of the Commonwealth will broadly mark the 20 years
since the emergence of this community of independent states.
The official start to the festivities will be given by the summit
conference.
Lebedev and Rakhmon will consider, among other things, the course of
implementation of the Concept of Economic Development of the CIS for the
period of up to 2020, which aims to foster the integration processes, to
expand mutually beneficial cooperation, to raise people's living
standards, and to assist further transformation of the Commonwealth.
"In foreign policy, Tajikistan attaches significance to the
development and strengthening of bilateral and multilateral relationships
with other member-states," Nizomiddin Zakhidov said.
He indicated that CIS is highly instrumental for the promotion of
friendship, good-neighborliness, inter-ethnic concord, trust, mutual
understanding, and mutually beneficial cooperation between countries.
Sergei Lebedev is due to have a meeting with Tajikistan's Foreign
Minister Khamrakhon Zarifi, in the course of which they are supposed to
discuss preparations for a session of the CIS Council of Foreign
Ministers, due in October.