Russian President Vladimir Putin will continue his working program in Astana on Friday. Astana is hosting representative multilateral summits for the second day in a row: a meeting of the Council of CIS heads of state will be held there on Friday, as well as a meeting on the "Russia-Central Asia" line.
In fact, the CIS leaders will meet together for the second time in a week: on October 7, on Vladimir Putin's 70th birthday, they had an informal summit in St. Petersburg. The Russian leader then drew attention to the fact that the agenda for the meeting in Astana included "really important topics of integration cooperation in politics, economics, and the humanitarian sphere."
According to Putin, the talks will focus on the further development of trade and investment partnership within the CIS, the improvement of the sustainability of the economies of all member countries of the Commonwealth.
The leaders will not ignore security issues. "Since, besides Ukraine, where the tragic events take place, unfortunately, conflicts sometimes arise between other neighboring states of the post-Soviet space, and this undoubtedly requires the development of measures to resolve them," said the president of Russia.
The meeting is planned in a narrow format with participation of leaders only, and also in a broad format with participation of delegations.
Participants of the meeting
Kazakhstan is chairing the CIS this year. According to Kazakhstan MFA spokesman Aibek Smadiyarov, the CIS summit will be one of the key events of the presidency of Astana in this organization. According to the foreign ministry, besides the presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan, the event will be attended by leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Sergei Lebedev, Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee and CIS Executive Secretary, will attend the meeting.
Smadiyarov stressed that Ukraine, which has suspended its participation in the association in recent years, will not attend the summit. President of Moldova Maya Sandu will not be able to participate due to a busy schedule.
President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is expected to sum up the results of his country's presidency in the Commonwealth.
New structures in the CIS
The summit is expected to decide on the launch of the CIS Commission on Human Rights. "Establishment of such a structure is conditioned by a need to counteract attempts of the West to use human rights issues as an instrument of political pressure and interference in the internal affairs of states," reads the materials for the meeting.
Also an international organization for support and promotion of the Russian language under the aegis of CIS will be established. The initiative belongs to the president of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and is aimed at popularization of the Russian language as a means of international communication.
A solid package of joint documents was prepared for approval at the summit of the Commonwealth. In particular, the CIS leaders will approve the updated program on combating terrorism and extremism for 2023-2025.
It is also expected that a decision on obtaining the observer status in the CSTO will be made. Besides, it is planned to sign agreements on cooperation in combating corruption and on formation of the Advisory Council of the heads of electoral bodies of the CIS member states. A number of other documents are also on the agenda.
They will determine the themes for each year of the CIS for the period of 2024-2026 and approve the cultural capital of the Commonwealth for 2023 - St. Petersburg might become it. The leaders will also consider transfer of the CIS presidency to Kyrgyzstan (Kazakhstan and Russia will become co-chairmen) and holding of the next summit of the Commonwealth in Bishkek.
"Russia - Central Asia"
On the same day, a meeting in the format of "Russia - Central Asia" will be held in the capital of Kazakhstan. The summit will be held for the first time, it is held in the year of the 30th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between Russia and all five Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan).
The Kremlin expects such summit meetings to become regular in the future.
The dialogue format was initiated by Moscow in 2019 at the level of foreign ministers to exchange views on the regional and international agenda. Five ministerial meetings have already been held.
The leaders are expected to discuss the further development of cooperation between Russia and Central Asia in the six-party format, including the protection of common trade, economic and other interests against the background of the current geopolitical situation, amid rising prices for food, raw materials and logistics. The heads of state are also expected to exchange views on regional security in the context of the situation in Afghanistan.
After the summit, it is planned to adopt a joint statement reflecting the current issues of regional cooperation in the Eurasian space. In addition, the final document will highlight the prospects for further cooperation in such areas as politics, security, trade and economic, cultural and humanitarian cooperation.
Previous meetings
The international program in Astana began a day earlier. The summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) was held in the Kazakh capital on Thursday. This is an interstate forum created at the initiative of Kazakhstan in 1992. It unites 27 states, which occupy about 90% of the territory of Asia and in which almost half of the world's population lives.
A number of bilateral meetings also took place on the margins of this event. In particular, the Russian president met with his counterparts from Qatar, Palestine, Turkey and other countries.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS