The Council of the Permanent Representatives of the CIS Member Nations held its first session in Minsk

The CIS Executive Committee held the first 2018 meeting of the Council of Permanent Plenipotentiary Representatives of the CIS Member Nations at the Statutory and Other Bodies of the Commonwealth under the presidency of the Republic of Tajikistan.

Chairman of the Executive Committee – Executive Secretary of the CIS Sergey Lebedev and his deputies Victor Guminskiy and Agybay Smagulov attended the meeting. On behalf of the IPA CIS the meeting was attended by the representative of the IPA CIS Council Secretariat Yuri Andreev.

Firstly, Sergey Lebedev introduced to the members of the Council the new Permanent Plenipotentiary Representative of the Republic of Kazakhstan at the CIS Statutory and Other Bodies, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Kazakhstan to the Republic of Belarus Ermukhamet Ertysbayev, Permanent Plenipotentiary Representative of the Republic of Tajikistan at the CIS Statutory and Other Bodies, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Tajikistan to the Republic of Belarus Makhmadsharif Khakdod and Deputy Chairman of the Executive Committee – Executive Secretary of the CIS Agybay Smagulov.

According to the press office of the CIS Executive Committee, the members of the Council of the Permanent Representatives drafted the agenda of the regular meeting of the Council of the CIS Foreign Ministers that will be held in Minsk on 6 April. It includes the issues of political cooperation, documents concerning the joint efforts of the countries of the Community to combat crime in the sphere of information technologies, legalization of funds obtained by criminal means, financing of terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Foreign Ministers will also consider the draft documents regulating cooperation in the sphere of education and youth policy.

During the session permanent representatives adopted the plan of work for the year ahead that features the issues concerning different spheres of cooperation among the CIS Member Nations, the activity of its bodies, draft agendas of the meeting of the supreme CIS bodies and implementation of the CIS documents.

Members of the Council of Permanent Representatives discussed the organization of work on updating the provisions of the Concept of Further Development of the Commonwealth of Independent States approved by the Council of the CIS Heads of State in October 2007. The Council decided to adapt the Concept to current realities and not to review it.

During the meeting the candidatures of heads of monitoring teams from the Commonwealth of Independent States were agreed. At the presidential elections in the Russian Federation (18 March 2018) the monitoring team from the CIS will be headed by Victor Guminskiy, at the parliamentary elections in Turkmenistan (25 March 2018) it will be led by Sergey Lebedev.

The next regular meeting of the Council of the Permanent Plenipotentiary Representatives of the CIS Member Nations at the Statutory and Other Bodies of the Commonwealth is expected to be held on 20 February.