CIS states to synchronize anti-crisis measures – Medvedev

22:3808/05/2010

The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a good platform for
coordination of efforts to overcome the effects of the economic
crisis, the Russian president said on Saturday.

Dmitry Medvedev said modernization was a priority for the CIS economies.

"Unfortunately, they have not as yet fully recovered from the economic
crisis," he said, addressing a CIS informal summit his Gorki residence
just outside Moscow.

He said the CIS provided a very good platform for coordinated
anti-crisis measures and that such efforts would continue.

"Our finance ministers regularly meet and discuss these issues," he said.

The CIS summit follows an informal summit of the Collective Security
Treaty Organization (CSTO), a post-Soviet security bloc.

A Kremlin source previously 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 leaders delivered an address to World War II veterans and
workers on 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.