Eurasian community to hold session in Kazakh capital 15-18 June

Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency, Almaty
12 Jun 04

Astana, 12 June: A summit of the Eurasian Economic Community [EAEC;
members are Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan –
the former Customs Union] will be held in Astana in the second ten
days of June, a press release circulated by the community’s press
service says.

“A programme (of the summit. – Interfax-Kazakhstan) will be very
rich: a session of the permanent representatives of the EAEC will be
held on 15-16 June; a session of the EAEC Integration Committee will
be held on 17 June and a session of the community’s highest body,
the Interstate Council of the EAEC at the level of heads of state,
will be held on 18 June,” the press release says.

Apart from this, an international forum entitled “Eurasian integration:
tendencies of modern development and challenges of globalization ”
will be opened on 18 June.

At the forthcoming session, the five countries’ heads, Belarusian
President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev,
Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev, Russian President Vladimir Putin
and Tajik President Emomali Rahmonov “will discuss issues aimed
at further deepening economic integration in the Eurasian space,
including issues related to control over the implementation of domestic
procedures that are necessary to bring international agreements signed
within the framework of the EAEC into effect; cooperation between the
community’s states in the energy sector, in particular, the effective
development of water and energy resources of Amudarya and Syrdarya;
the creation of a single EAEC tariff basis for railway transportation
and a number of other issu es”, the press release says.

Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, Moldovan President Vladimir
Voronin and Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma are invited to attend
the session of Interstate Council as observers.

A news conference will be held following the session.

[Passage omitted: Background on EAEC]