TURKMENBASHI /Turkmenistan/, October 7. /TASS/. The Greater Eurasian Partnership is open to all subregional organizations and countries that do not currently belong to them, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference following a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Council of Foreign Ministers.
"I would like to emphasize that all subregional organizations on the Eurasian continent are invited to cooperate in this area, where collaboration is already gaining momentum. Naturally, the door is also open to individual countries that do not currently belong to any subregional organization," he said.
Lavrov noted that the CIS, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Gulf Cooperation Council, OPEC and ASEAN are working to develop economic and transport cooperation. "The idea of the Greater Eurasian Partnership is precisely to establish relations among all these organizations in order to pursue a rational division of labor and ensure that their programs and projects complement one another. The CIS, the EAEU and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization have agreements at the secretariat level, which is already the first step toward harmonizing their programs. ASEAN is also joining this work," Lavrov said.
"The work is not easy, given the multitude of views, assessments, ideas and initiatives. But diplomacy and foreign policy exist precisely to bring various initiatives, many of which are moving in the same direction, to a common denominator," the Russian foreign minister concluded.