ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER AND DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER OF RUSSIA MEET

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 23. ARMINFO. Thursday, Armenian Foreign Minister
Vardan Oskanyan and Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Razov and
Assistance to the President for Education and Science Jakhan Poliyeva
discussed issues of reforms of CIS. The decision on the reforms was
made in September, 2004 in the course of CIS Summit in Astana, the
press-service of the Armenian Foreign Ministry informs ARMINFO. In
conformity with the decision, CIS signatories were instructed to
submit their notifications to Chairman of the CIS Council of FMs.

To fulfill the instructions, the Armenian Foreign Ministry directed
a package of the proposals presented by Kazakhstan to the Armenian
Government requesting introduction with the opinion of the ministries
interested, In the course of the inter-department discussion at the
Armenian Foreign Ministry, the Justice Ministry, the Ministry for
Finance and Economy, Defense Ministry, National Security Service
and the National Statistical Committee agreed with the proposals
of Kazakhstan. Armenian Police came out against the above proposals
pointing out that dissolution of the Council of CIS Interior Ministers
will considerab ly complicate the struggle against organized crime
in the CIS area. Permanent Plenipotentiary Representative of Armenia
in the legislative and other bodies of CIS, Armenian Ambassador to
Belarus Suren Haroutiunyan also expressed his opinion on the proposals
of Kazakhstan. The project of notifications of Armenia on the proposals
of Kazakhstan has been submitted to Armenian President.

In his turn, Armenian President instructed that the points related
to the insitution of permanent representatives in the CIS Economic
Court and Economic Council be amended. Then, notifications of
Armenia regarding Kazakhstan’s proposals were submitted to Chairman
of CIS Council of Foreign Ministers, Foreign Minister of Russia
Sergey Lavrov. In January of 2005, the Russian party will sum up
the opinions of the states and will present relevant information
to CIS signatory-states. In the course of his visit to CIS, Sergey
Razov will propose forming a task group on reforms of CIS, which
will include in it experts working under leadership of CIS Deputy
Foreign Ministers. Should need arise, the group will convene several
sessions in order that a final document be submitted to the session
of CIS Foreign Ministers planned for March of 2005 in Minsk, which,
in its turn, will submit a draft of the relevant document to the
session of CIS Leaders in August, 2005 in Kazan.