ASTANA, October 14. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin will continue his visit to Kazakhstan’s capital Astana on Friday, taking part in the summit of the post-Soviet organization - the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and the first-ever summit in the Russia-Central Asia format.
In fact, it will be the second meeting of CIS leaders in the past seven days: on Putin’s birthday on October 7, they convened for an informal summit in Russia’s second largest city of St. Petersburg. Back then, the Russian leader said: "The Kazakh presidency puts on its agenda truly important topics of integrating interaction in the politics, in the economy and in the humanitarian sphere."
During the summit in Kazakhstan, the leaders will focus on developing the trade and investment partnership and boosting the resilience of the member states’ national economies, Putin added. "We will think how to invigorate the cooperative effort of increasing stability of all our economies, in particularly through the buildup of bilateral and multilateral cooperative ties and support of the technological sovereignty," he said.
Security issues will also be raised. "Indeed, along with Ukraine where truly tragic events are taking place now, conflicts do emerge between other neighbors on the post-Soviet space from time to time, and, naturally, measures to resolve them need to be shaped," Putin said.
The CIS summit will be held in both the narrow format (only with the participation of the leaders), and in the extended one, with other members of national delegations taking part.
Participants of the meeting
This year, Kazakhstan holds the rotating CIS presidency. According to Kazakh Foreign Ministry Spokesman Aybek Smadiyarov, the summit of the Commonwealth will be a central event of Astana’s presidency in the organization.
Apart from the presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan, the gathering will be also attended by the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee Sergey Lebedev will address the meeting.
Smadiyarov said that Ukraine, which skipped all CIS events in the past years, will not send its delegate to the summit. Moldovan President Maia Sandu will not participate due to her hectic working schedule, he added.
New CIS bodies
A decision to launch the CIS Human Rights Commission is expected to be made during the summit. "The creation of this kind of structure is necessitated by the need to counter West’s attempts to use the human rights domain as a tool for political pressure and interference into sovereign affairs of countries," a readout issued prior to the meeting says.
Also, an international organization to support and promote the Russian language under the CIS auspices will be created. The initiative was put forward by Kazakh President Kasym-Jomart Tokayev and is aimed at promoting Russian as a language of international communication.
A solid package of joint documents has been prepared for signing, including an updated anti-terrorism and anti-extremism program for 2023-2025 and an agreement on cooperation in anti-corruption efforts.
Also, the summit’s participants are expected to approve the observer status of the CIS at the post-Soviet security bloc, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
The leaders will also discuss the transition of the CIS presidency to Kyrgyzstan, with Kazakhstan and Russia being its co-chairs, and holding the next Commonwealth summit in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek.
‘Russia - Central Asia’ summit
On the same day, the capital of Kazakhstan will hold the first-ever summit in the ‘Russia - Central Asia’ format. The event will take place on the year marking the 30th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between Russia and the five Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan).
Kremlin expects that top-level meetings in this format will become regular in the future.
This format of dialogue was initiated by Moscow in 2019. On that year, the foreign ministers of the six countries gathered to exchange opinions on various regional and international issues. Five such meetings have already taken place to date.
The leaders are expected to discuss development of cooperation between Russia and Central Asia in the six-party format, including the protection of common interests in trade, economy and other sectors against the backdrop of the current geopolitical situation and amid growing prices for food, raw materials and logistics. They are also expected to exchange opinions on regional security in the context of the situation in Afghanistan.
After the summit, the participants are expected to adopt a joint statement, reflecting topical issues of regional cooperation in Eurasia. Also, the final document will mention prospects for further cooperation in politics, security, trade, economy and culture.
Previous meetings
Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in the Kazakh capital of Astana on Thursday night. On that day, the capital of Kazakhstan hosted the summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA). The association involves countries that occupy about 90% of the territory of Asia and account for almost half of the world's population. At the moment, CICA unites 27 countries.
A number of bilateral meetings were held on the sidelines of the event. The Russian president met with his colleagues from Qatar, Palestine, Turkey and a number of other states.