CIS informal summit opens near Moscow

19:1108/05/2010

GORKI (Moscow Region), May 8 (RIA Novosti) — An informal Commonwealth
of Independent States (CIS) summit opened on Saturday at the Russian
president’s Gorki residence just outside Moscow.
The summit follows an informal summit of the Collective Security
Treaty Organization (CSTO), a post-Soviet security bloc.

A Kremlin source said the summit did not have a fixed agenda and that
the CIS leaders would use it to exchange opinions on the status and
prospects for cooperation within the CIS.

The summit is attended by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Armenian
President Serzh Sargsyan, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko,
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Turkmen President Gurbanguly
Berdymukhamedov, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Moldova’s
acting president Mihai Ghimpu, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon, Uzbek
Prime Minister Shavkat Mirzieyev and CIS Executive Committee Chairman
Sergei Lebedev.

The CIS presidents are expected to deliver an address to World War II
veterans and workers of the home front.

The former Soviet states of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and
Ukraine are members of the CIS. Georgia pulled out of the organization
in 2009.