Commonwealth Experts Work on Agreement on Establishment of International Organization for Russian Language

On 24 August, a meeting of the expert group on the drafts of the Agreement on the Establishment of the International Organization for the Russian Language and its Charter took place in Minsk.

Representatives of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and the CIS Executive Committee took part in the event.

The experts considered the proposals to the documents received from the countries. After the discussion, the draft Agreement on the Establishment of the International Organization for the Russian Language was generally agreed upon. However, the meeting decided that the remaining issues will be agreed at an additional meeting of the expert group, which will be held 5 September 2023, reports the press service of the CIS Executive Committee.

Representative of the IPA CIS Council Secretariat at the CIS Executive Committee Igor Borovko took part in the meeting.

The proposal on establishing an international structure in the Commonwealth to support and promote the Russian language was made by President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on 21 December 2021 at a meeting with President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.

The initiative was supported by the CIS leaders at the meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State in October 2022 in Astana. The concept of the organization was also approved at the meeting. According to it, the CIS Executive Committee together with the CIS countries’ governments was tasked to organize the development of draft documents establishing and regulating the activities of the new international organization.

The International Conference “Russian Language as a Basis for Integration Dialogue in the CIS” will be held on 26-27 October 2023 at the Tavricheskiy Palace – the IPA CIS headquarters. The program of the event includes a plenary session, roundtables and discussions on the current status of the Russian language as interethnic communication in the CIS and in the world, the potential of it in the sphere of humanitarian cooperation. A final resolution will be adopted based on the results of the conference.

The organizers of the conference together with the IPA CIS are the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the Russian National Library, the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library, St. Petersburg State University, Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia.

Photo: cis.minsk.by