CIS Heads of State Council meeting in Kazakhstan
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The Commonwealth of Independent States should get down to dealing with serious problems in the post-Soviet space. Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko made the statement during the narrow-format session of the CIS Heads of State Council on 16 October.
Aleksandr Lukashenko said, “The CIS should start discussing serious problems in the post-Soviet space and stimulate those, who are responsible for their resolution, as much as possible. Without it, our cooperation will slide and will fade away.”
The Commonwealth of Independent States will be respected and needed only when it addresses key issues of vital importance, continued the Belarus President. As an example he mentioned conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, and Ukraine. “We bashfully avoid these problems,” Aleksandr Lukashenko noted. “It may seem we are accustomed to the situation. We expect Americans, the European Union, or someone else to come here and say how this problem can be dealt with or to resolve the problem for us.”
New formations have emerged in the post-Soviet space where the existing problems can be discussed more profoundly, Aleksandr Lukashenko noted. The number includes the Eurasian Economic Union, the UnionState of Belarus and Russia as the most advanced form of integration, the Collective Security Treaty Organization and other entities. “Recently we’ve been leaning towards bilateral relations, we’ve been actually prioritizing them. In other words, quite many vivid trends have emerged in the post-Soviet space that encourage us to adapt the CIS to the present-day reality right away,” Aleksandr Lukashenko pointed out.
The CIS should adapt to the changing situation, the President said.
At the narrow-format meeting heads of the delegations congratulated Aleksandr Lukashenko on re-election and wished him every success in this responsible work. The President stated that the past presidential election was a difficult campaign for Belarus. According to the President, it was very important to know how Belarusians would vote in the face of such strong outside pressure. “We have tried to restore our relations with the European Union, which is one of our main trade and economic partners. I did not conceal the fact that we had fulfilled all requests of our partners. After the election the question was what comes next?” Aleksandr Lukashenko remarked. “They had to acknowledge that the election in Belarus was held in compliance even with the standards we don’t have yet, the UN, OSCE, PACE and other organizations regularly demand them from us.”
Aleksandr Lukashenko explained that he was speaking about this issue in detail because the same will happen in all the CIS countries in the future. It will be necessary to prove the ability to rule the state in a very tactful manner, he noted. In this regard, the President mentioned the role of the Commonwealth. After the general conclusion the representatives of all the CIS member states have pronounced about the election, it is very difficult for Western states to formulate their pre-arranged agendas, Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed and wished the CIS to play a more decisive role in other matters, too.
The agenda of the today’s CIS Heads of State Council meeting included 17 issues. The CIS heads of state passed statements regarding the 70th anniversary of the UN, the 30thanniversary of the Chernobyl accident, the fight against international terrorism. Apart from that, certain issues were connected with the enhancement of military and border cooperation. The participants also considered a number of personnel issues. At the meeting Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko presented the Order of Friendship of Peoples to Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The highest state award of the Republic of Belarus was conferred on the Kazakhstan leader for a big personal contribution to the establishment and development of friendly ties and strategic partnership between the two countries.