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Kyrgyzstan wants to join CES with Russia

Lavrov said for his part that over the past 20 years Russia and Kyrgyzstan have been building their relationship as sovereign states

Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

BISHKEK, April 5 (Itar-Tass) — Kyrgyzstan wants to join the common economic space (CES) with Russia, the republic’s President Almazbek Atambayev said at a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday.

“Russia is our strategic partner,” the president said. “I hope that your visit will allow us to discuss many issues, and relations between our countries will become even friendlier.”

“The peoples of our nations have common roots, we are bound by kinship,” Atambayev said. “Once I had voted in a referendum for the preservation of the Soviet Union,” the president of Kyrgyzstan said. “It is impossible to restore it, but we can create a common economic space for our countries, so that citizens could travel without any customs posts.”

Sergei Lavrov said for his part that over the past 20 years Russia and Kyrgyzstan have been building their relationship as sovereign states. “But we remain partners,” the Russian foreign minister said. “We are interested in fulfilling the set tasks.”

Lavrov also stressed that that the door for Kyrgyzstan to the integration processes with the participation of Russia in the CIS space is still open.

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