The first meeting of the CIS Council of Permanent Plenipotentiary Representatives to the CIS Statutory and Other Bodies this year was held on January 29 at the CIS Executive Committee headquarters in Minsk.
CIS Secretary-General Sergey Lebedev participated in the meeting.
The central topic of the meeting was the presentation of the Concept of Turkmenistan’s Chairmanship in the Commonwealth of Independent States for 2026 and the Action Plan for its implementation.
The Concept was presented by the Chairman of the Council of Permanent Representatives, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Turkmenistan to the Republic of Belarus, Permanent Plenipotentiary Representative of Turkmenistan to the CIS Statutory and Other Bodies, Nazarkuly Shakuliyev.
He emphasized that the priorities of the chairmanship are peace, neutrality, and trust. Economic cooperation and transport connectivity, humanitarian and cultural cooperation, ecology and sustainable development, digital transformation, and innovative development are given great prominence.
According to him, Turkmenistan attaches significant importance to consolidating international efforts in observing and protecting recognized international legal norms and the UN Charter. Serving this goal, in particular, is Turkmenistan’s initiative, put forward at the current UN General Assembly session, to declare 2028 the Year of International Law.
During the Council meeting, the Work Plan of the Council of Permanent Representatives for the current year was also approved.
The meeting participants largely formed the draft agenda for the upcoming meeting of the CIS Foreign Ministers Council, scheduled for April 17 in Kaliningrad.
It is proposed to submit seven items for consideration by the heads of foreign affairs ministries. These include:
– Implementation of the Plan for Multilevel Inter-MFA Consultations within the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Program of Action to Intensify Partnership among Foreign Affairs Ministries in 2025;
– Draft regulations on CIS basic organizations in the field of information support for education systems and in the field of adult education and educational activities.
The members of the Council of Permanent Representatives took note of the report on the implementation of the “Development of CIS Statistics” Project. Information on this matter was presented by Konstantin Laikam, the Chairman of the Commonwealth of Independent States Interstate Statistical Committee.
He reminded that the implementation of the Project is aimed at:
– Ensuring the development and implementation of current and prospective statistical methodology based on international standards, considering the specifics of the CIS countries;
– Creating a modern information base at the CIS Statistical Committee;
– Introducing the latest software and technological tools enabling substantive analysis of the social and economic situation in the Commonwealth countries;
– Introducing professional standards and forming a statistical community within the CIS space;
– Assisting the further development and implementation in national statistical services of the typical statistical production model recommended by the UN to ensure the quality of official statistics;
– Maximizing the use for statistical purposes of additional information resources available in the CIS member states, particularly big data.
The results of the 5th session of the National Kurultai, held on January 20 in Kyzylorda, were reported to his colleagues by Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the Republic of Belarus, Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan to the CIS Statutory Bodies, Timur Zhaksylykov.
The next meeting of the Council of Permanent Plenipotentiary Representatives of the Commonwealth of Independent States Member States to the CIS Statutory and Other Bodies is scheduled for February 24 in Minsk.