MINSK, August 28. /TASS/. Ukraine closed its representative office at the constituent bodies of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in August, Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee Sergei Lebedev told reporters on Tuesday.
"We state with regret that Ukraine’s representative office at the Commonwealth’s constituent bodies was closed in August, but we’ll retain contact with Ukraine: we are having contacts in Minsk through the Ukrainian Embassy in the Republic of Belarus," he said.
"A special employee was assigned there, and I don’t see anything tragic in it, because we had a similar situation 10 years ago," Lebedev noted. He specified that at that time an embassy employee combined his activity in the diplomatic mission with the representation of his country’s interest at the CIS constituent bodies. "I still hope that Ukraine will preserve its presence in the CIS," Lebedev said.
The background
In December 1991 Ukraine ratified the Agreement on the Establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Protocol to the Agreement, but did not ratify the Charter of the Commonwealth, so it did not become a CIS member de jure. Still, Kiev took part in the organization’s work at all levels. In 2014, after the coup d’etat in Ukraine the new Ukrainian administration declared the start of its withdrawal from the CIS. In October 2014, a corresponding draft law was submitted to Verkhovna Rada, which has not been studied until recently.
In May 2018, Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko signed the order on the end of Ukraine’s participation in the CIS constituent bodies. In June, the chairman of the CIS Executive Committee reported that a note was received which said that a diplomat will be assigned to Ukraine’s embassy in Belarus who will be in charge of contacts with the CIS Executive Committee.