Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 2
By Seba Aghayeva – Trend:
The next meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development will be held on Dec. 15 in Baku, GUAM Secretariat told Trend Dec. 2.
The meeting agenda includes discussions on GUAM member-states’ integration to Europe, cooperation within the Eastern Partnership program, role of multilateral parliamentary cooperation in ensuring regional and international security, role of regional and international parliamentary organizations in development of interregional cooperation, energy potential of the GUAM region, and others.
The meeting is expected to be attended by delegations of the GUAM member-states – Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine as well as representatives of the Baltic Assembly, Visegrad Group and Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic Speaking Countries (TurkPA).
The GUAM format was created by the post-Soviet states in 1997 during the summit of heads of states of the European Union in Strasbourg. In 1999, Uzbekistan joined the format and four years later withdrew. In 2006, Ukraine and Azerbaijan announced plans to further increase the GUAM member relations by renaming the organization as GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development and establishing its headquarters in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.
Azerbaijan assumed the chairmanship in GUAM on January 1, 2016.