Rafael M. Manueco
Correspondent. Moscow
Tuesday, October 8, 2024, 16:52
In a new attempt to show the country’s population and the global south that Russia is not isolated and maintains a fluid relationship with many states in the world, the top Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, chairs a new summit of the Community this Tuesday in Moscow. of Independent States (CIS), a structure created in December 1991 to replace the defunct Soviet Union. This year the rotating presidency of the CIS belongs to Russia and in 2025 to Tajikistan.
The CIS leaders already held an “informal” meeting on Monday afternoon at Putin’s residence in Novo-Ogariovo, on the outskirts of the Russian capital, and this Tuesday, before the official start of the summit in the Kremlin, Putin met with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliev, and with the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, to try to close the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis after the recent armed clashes.
Yuri Ushakov, assistant to the Russian president on foreign relations, explained that within the framework of the current CIS summit “participants will exchange opinions on mutual interaction and a wide variety of topics (…) they will define the main tasks for 2025, “They will analyze current international and regional problems, as well as steps to improve the efficiency of the organization and its executive structures, in total 14 issues will be submitted for discussion.” According to Ushakov, documents will also be signed, some on security matters, although he did not detail their content.
Absence of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova
In addition to Aliev and Pashinian, the summit is attended by the presidents of Belarus (Alexander Lukashenko), Kazakhstan (Kasim-Zhomart Tokayev), Kyrgyzstan (Sadir Zhaparov), Tajikistan (Emomali Rakhmon), Turkmenistan (Serdar Berdimujamedov) and Uzbekistan (Shavkat Mirziyóyev). .. The leaders of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova have not intervened in these meetings for a long time and the three Baltic republics, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have never done so.
Turkmenistan is not a full member of the CIS, but has recently adopted a policy of rapprochement. In fact, this Central Asian country, the most closed and dictatorial within the former Soviet space, will host a forum for Peace and Development starting Friday in its capital, Ashgabat, to which Putin and his Iranian counterpart, Masud Pezeshkian, will attend. The two will meet for the first time, according to Ushakov, to address “the serious worsening of the situation in the Middle East.”
Before leaving for Turkmenistan, the head of the Kremlin will meet again with Lukashenko, in which, Ushakov indicated, “will be the eighth meeting of the presidents of Russia and Belarus so far in 2024.” The presidential advisor announced that all participants in the CIS meeting this Tuesday “will receive an invitation to join the BRICS summit” that will take place in the Russian city of Kazan on the 23rd and 24th of this month.
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