CIS Heads of State Council meeting starts in Minsk

MINSK, October 10. /TASS/. Heads of state of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) have started a narrow format meeting in the Belarusian capital Minsk. The agenda of the CIS summit “encompasses cooperation in the economic sphere and law enforcement. A number of documents have been prepared for approval. They are geared to deepen multi-faceted interaction, strengthen the international system of drug control resistance to human trafficking, step up the struggle against illegal migration and enhance financial control,” said Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov. Ushakov forecasts that the leaders will declare 2016 as Education Year in the CIS and also launch an inter-state program Cultural Capitals of the Commonwealth. The two cities selected for the program are Russia’s Voronezh and Tajikistan’s Kulob. “It is expected that the heads of state will issue a joint appeal to the peoples of the CIS and the world public in connection with the 70th anniversary of Victory in the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War,” Ushakov said. The agreement to establish the CIS was signed by Russia, Belarus and Ukraine on December 8, 1991. At the moment the CIS unites Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. Belarus took over the CIS presidency this year when Ukraine last spring refused to perform the functions of the CIS president. Learn more