DUSHANBE, April 3, 2013, Asia-Plus – A session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the CIS Member Nations will take place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on April 5.

According to information posted on the Uzbek MFA’s website, the foreign ministers of the CIS eleven member nations will discuss cooperation within the CIS area as well as ongoing preparations for sessions of the CIS statutory bodies.

Meanwhile the CIS Executive Committee press center reports that more than a dozen topics have been tabled to the agenda of the CIS foreign ministers’ meeting in Tashkent.  Among them are cooperation between CIS member countries in politics, security, education, as well as programs to promote physical training, sports and tourism.

The CIS foreign ministers are expected to exchange views on a number of aspects of international policy.  They will also adopt the plan of multilevel inter-MFA consultations within the CIS area for 2013 and discuss prospects of further expansion of cooperation between the CIS member nations.

The CIS foreign ministers will also consider the draft decision of the CIS heads of state to declare the year of 2014 the Year of Tourism in CIS and the draft plan of actions for implementation of the physical training and sports development strategy designed for the period until 2020.

The next session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the CIS Member Nations will take place in Minsk, Belarus in October this year.

The Council of Foreign Minister of the CIS Member Nations is the main executive body ensuring cooperation in the field of foreign policy activities of the CIS member states on the matters of mutual interest, adopting decisions during the period between the meetings of the Council of the CIS Heads of State, the Council of the CIS Heads of Government and by their orders.  The first session of the Council took place in August 1993.

The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union.  It now consists of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine.  Georgia pulled out of the organization in 2009.