On October 14, 2021, a regular meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States was held in the city of Minsk of the Republic of Belarus.
The meeting was attended by heads of foreign ministries of CIS countries, the Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee – Executive Secretary, his deputies and heads of structural divisions of the CIS Executive Committee.
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Turkmenistan to the Republic of Belarus N.Shagulyyev took part in the meeting from the Turkmen side. Noting the importance of the issues on the agenda, the Ambassador highlighted economic cooperation as a priority direction in his statement. As the Ambassador noted, the CIS Economic Development Strategy to 2030 envisages close interaction in important spheres, and on this background, the CIS should fully realize its potential as a strong subject of economic activity in Eurasia.
The Ambassador also spoke for the continuation of close interaction and coordination of the activities of the CIS Foreign Ministries on such key aspects of the international agenda, as ensuring peace and security, arms control, countering modern threats and challenges, biological security, cybercrime and misuse of internet technology, environmental issue and etc. He noted that in this context, Turkmenistan supports the Plan of multilevel inter-ministerial consultations within the CIS for 2022.
As the most important area of joint work, he highlighted the coordination of positions of the CIS countries on the agenda of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly. It was emphasized that Turkmenistan also fully supports the practice of holding regular meetings of heads of diplomatic missions of the CIS Member States to international organizations (UNESCO, OSCE, IAEA, etc.) to exchange views on current topics of their agenda and other international and regional issues.
During his speech on behalf of the Turkmen side, the representative of Turkmenistan invited the Commonwealth countries to participate in the International Conference «The Policy of Peace and Trust is the foundation of international security, stability and development», which will be held in Turkmenistan at the end of this year.
During the meeting, the draft final documents were considered. One of the main issues was the consideration of the Regulations on the International Association of Historians and Archivists of the CIS Member States.
Also the projects of documents, which will be sent to the Council of the CIS Heads of States for consideration, were approved. They are statements on the CIS’s 30th anniversary, on cooperation in the field of biosecurity and other documents.
The participants of the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the CIS countries approved and submitted for consideration of the Council of Heads of Governments a draft Action Plan for the Year of Folk Art and Cultural Heritage in the Commonwealth of Independent States in 2022. Also the document of declaring the city of Comrat (Republic of Moldova) the Cultural Capital of the Commonwealth in 2023 was signed at the meeting.
