France, Strasburg, 19 March /corr. Trend A.Maherremli/ Consultations took place in Strasburg on 19 March between the Council of Europe and GUAM countries (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova).
The meeting was also attended by the GUAM Secretary General, Valerie Chechashvili. Azerbaijani mission during the consultations was headed by the Department Chief of Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry, Tofig Musayev.
During the consultations, the representatives of Poland, Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria and other countries expressed necessity of strengthening the co-operation between the Council of Europe and GUAM. A Memorandum of Understanding was suggested to be prepared and signed for this purpose. In addition, a suggestion was made to invite the Council of Europe's Secretary General, Terry Davis, to the Tbilisi summit of the GUAM, which will take place at the beginning of July to discuss further ways of developing co-operation.
As an alternative to CIS the four post-Soviet republics Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova, established the GUAM format in 1997 during the summit of the presidents of the European Union countries in Strasburg. In 1999, Uzbekistan joined the organization and left it in 4 years. In 2006, at the first summit of the organization in Kiev it was decided to announce GUAM an international organization with a new name of the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development - GUAM.