Russia, Moscow, March 26 / Trend special correspondent, I.Bragin/
Today the President Hotel in Moscow hosted a meeting of the CIS Council of Foreign Ministers. Firstly the foreign ministers held talks in a small circle, and then gathered for a plenary meeting attended by representatives of delegations. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who presided the meeting, said that the ministers discussed a whole range of issues, which will subsequently be submitted for consideration by the CIS Council of Heads of Governments and Heads of States.
The agenda of the CIS Council of Foreign Ministers included about 18 questions, including discussion of economic cooperation, celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Victory, as well as joint measures to combat criminality.
The foreign ministers supported the work of Kazakhstan as the OSCE Chairman and discussed the prospects of a new European security treaty.
Lavrov said that summing up the meeting of CIS Foreign Ministers, the Commonwealth countries have well advanced on many issues of foreign policy topics and supported the Russian initiative on the promotion of a new European security treaty.
The CIS countries have expressed their support for Kazakhstan in the promotion of all its initiatives.
"The role of Kazakhstan as the OSCE Chairman-in-Office is extremely important, especially in the preservation of the inviolable principles of the organization, in particular the principle of making decisions by consensus. Unfortunately, there is a tendency to run off some of the key moments of the OSCE," said Russian foreign minister.
In addition, the ministerial meeting covered mechanisms for monitoring the elections, active involvement of CIS structures, the CIS Inter-parliamentary Assembly in this process. This question, according to the Russian minister, is relevant, since this year elections are scheduled in several CIS countries.
The Ministerial Council also discussed cooperation in the humanitarian sphere, as well as the prospects for economic cooperation, in particular, the concept of development strategy of the Commonwealth.
Specifying the issue of strategy development, the head of the CIS Executive Committee Sergei Lebedev stressed that since 2007, 64 percent of all planned activities have been implemented, and the rest are in progress. "Some of the difficulties are connected with the international financial crisis, which has affected our countries as well," said the head of the CIS Executive Committee.
He also spoke about the proposal to hold lesson of the Commonwealth at schools of the CIS countries in December each year.