On April 14, Samarkand hosted the CIS Foreign Ministers Council meeting.

The meeting was attended by the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan Bakhtiyor Saidov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus Sergei Aleinik, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan Jeenbek Kulubayev, Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Murat Nurtleu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan Sirodjiddin Muhriddin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Khalaf Khalafov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan Vepa Hajiyev, as well as Secretary General of the CIS Sergey Lebedev.

At meetings in contracted and expanded formats, an exchange of views took place on further intensification of multifaceted cooperation between the Commonwealth countries and on urgent regional and international issues.

At the meeting, information was heard on the plan for a multi-level inter-MFA consultation and the implementation in 2022 of the Action Program to expand partnerships between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the CIS member countries.

The documents submitted for consideration by the Council of Heads of Government of the Commonwealth Member States and the Council of Heads of State were considered and approved, including draft documents on declaring the city of Samarkand as the capital of culture in 2024, and the city of Tashkent as the capital of youth.

A decision was approved to declare the city of Minsk of Belarus in 2023 and 2024 the city of Gyumri of Armenia as the capital of sports.

The participants of the meeting discussed the issue of the Spartakiad of the CIS countries among children with disabilities.

The Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs decided to give the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia the status of the main university for training and retraining journalists.

It was decided to hold the next meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the CIS on October 12, 2023, in the city of Bishkek of the Kyrgyz Republic.

At a briefing, CIS Secretary General Sergey Lebedev noted that the regular meeting of foreign ministers was held at a high level, an agreement was reached on further developing the Organization’s prospects and ties in various fields between member countries.

Samarkand also hosted a meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Central Asian countries and Russia.

The dialogue in the “Central Asia – Russia” format, which completed the cycle of Samarkand meetings, confirmed the actual importance of reliable and mutually interested ties between the countries and peoples of the region.

The participants discussed promising areas in the political, diplomatic, trade, economic, transport, energy, cultural and humanitarian spheres.

[gallery-11460]

Golib Khasanov, UzA