Shukurjon Zuhurov, speaker of Tajikistan’s lower house (Majlisi Namoyandagon) of parliament, has left for St. Petersburg to participate in sessions of the Parliament Assemblies (PAs) of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

A session of the CSTO Parliament Assembly will take place on April 12.

The decision on creating the CSTO PA was reached on November 16, 2006 in St. Petersburg on the sidelines of a CIS parliamentary meeting.  Just six of the countries that compose the CSTO -- Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan -- signed a document to that effect.

The 47th plenary session of the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (CIS IPA) will be held on April 13.

“Inter-culture Dialogue Between the CIS Member Nations: State, Prospects and Legal Groundwork” will be the topic on the agenda of the CIS IPA’s session.  

The session participants will disucss draft laws worked out by the CIS permanent commissions on culture, information, tourism and sports, education and science, social policy and human rights, defense and security, as well as agrarian policy, natural resources and ecology.  

CIS IPA was created on March 27, 1992 in Almaty (Kazakhstan) under the terms of the Agreement signed by Heads of founding parliaments.  In 1995, the session of the Council of the CIS Heads of State held in Minsk, Belarus consolidated the status of CIS IPA as a fully-fledged international organization. On May 26, 1995 CIS leaders signed the Convention on the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of Member Nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States eventually ratified by nine CIS parliaments.  Under the terms of the Convention, the CIS IPA was invested with international legitimacy.

The CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly consists of national parliamentary delegations.  A Parliamentary Delegation consists of representatives of a Member Nation elected or appointed by the Parliament of a Member Nation Party to the IPA CIS Convention from among their members and in compliance with respective internal regulations.  A parliamentary delegation is led by the Head of parliamentary delegation.  IPA CIS Council is responsible for the organization of work of the Assembly.  The Council is presided over by the Chairperson.