2018 CIS summit to take place in Dushanbe in late September

SOCHI, October 11. /TASS/. A next summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS, an assembly of post-Soviet states) will be held in late September 2018, CIS Executive Secretary Sergei Lebedev said on Wednesday after the CIS leaders’ talks in Sochi. "With regard to the fact that Tajikistan will begin its year-long presidency of the CIS next year, the country’s President Emomali Rakhmon suggested that the next summit of the CIS Council of Heads of State be convened in Dushanbe at the end of September, 2018," Lebedev said, noting a relevant decision had already been taken. The CIS Executive Secretary added that in 2018 Turkmenistan will co-chair the CIS and in 2019 it will assume CIS presidency. "The interest to maintain the CIS is proved by the fact that two heads of the delegations have simultaneously announced their willingness to assume presidency in 2020. It is more notable that Uzbekistan has submitted the 2020 presidency bid for the first time in the history of the Commonwealth," he said. Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev expressed readiness to chair the CIS and host meetings of CIS supreme bodies in his country. "Simultaneously, Moldova’s President Igor Dodon submitted the same request," Lebedev said, adding that "in this friendly atmosphere the heads of Uzbek and Moldovan delegations will come to an agreement who will chair [the CIS] in 2020. There is still time left." Read more