Dushanbe hosts Summit of CIS Council of Heads of State

Dushanbe hosted today the Summit of the CIS Council of Heads of State.

The talks in a narrow format, where President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko spoke, were closed-door. Reporters were allowed only to take pictures of the speech of the head of Tajikistan. The press service of the Belarusian leader published the theses of Alexander Lukashenko’s speech. The President of Belarus called for unity and joint actions within the CIS against the backdrop of the destruction of the existing system of international trade. The Head of State stressed that the permanent priority of Belarus' membership in the CIS is strengthening economic cooperation. At the same time he noted that world market relations increasingly lose the signs of civilized interaction between countries.

"Together, we will be able to successfully confront these new challenges: on the one hand, we must unite efforts to jointly protect interests in the global market, on the other, to intensify mutual trade and investment, expand industrial cooperation, and generally consolidate and enhance the role of the Commonwealth as a regional player".

The head of the Belarusian state regretfully stated that the parties in the CIS do not have a common vision and general development plan for the Commonwealth.

“As part of the Commonwealth’s adaptation to modern realities, we have begun to revise the Concept for the Further Development of the CIS. I propose to instruct governments to update the economic part in this document. It can become an ideological basis for a more complete use of research, production and investment potential within the Commonwealth. It is necessary to reasonably link this with the development of the Strategy for the Economic Development of the CIS for the period after 2020".

Among the proposals of the President of Belarus is synchronization of interaction in the CIS format with integration processes in Eurasia, especially within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Alexander Lukashenko is sure that a broad dialogue of the Commonwealth with the Eurasian Economic Union will also promote stable relations between the CIS countries. Following the results of the summit, Alexander Lukashenko invited his colleagues in the Commonwealth to visit the Second European Games, which will be held in Minsk in June next year. He also gave an interview to Russian journalists, where he spoke in detail about the issues that were discussed during the meeting. The central theme was security.

During the summit, the President held a number of bilateral meetings with foreign leaders. Alexander Lukashenko discussed with President of Moldova Igor Dodon the state of trade and economic cooperation, the implementation of previous agreements and promising areas for the development of cooperation.