BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

24/11/2006

CIS Council of Heads of Governments meets in Minsk

MINSK, November 24 (Itar-Tass) - The CIS Council of Heads of Governments opened in the Belarussian capital Minsk on Friday.

The integration within the Commonwealth of Independent States will be discussed.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov told reporters that a "number of concrete questions the resolution of which will help the further integration of our countries within the framework of the CIS will be discussed.

"We shall also discuss such important topics as the improvement of the foreign economic activity of the CIS states, security, cooperation of law enforcement agencies, the creation and development of the joint air defence system for 2007, as well as a block of financial matters and other topics".

A ranking source in the Russian delegation told ITAR-TASS that the "heads of CIS governments will discuss concrete problems and sign concrete documents".

"It is not planned to raise at the Council of Heads of Governments any strategic questions connected with the CIS reform. Today. The meeting of the council is considered as preparation to the Commonwealth summit that will be also held in Minsk on November 28", the source said.

Delegations of most of the CIS states to the meeting are lead by prime ministers.

Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Kasymov heads the Uzbek delegation and Deputy Prime Minister Georgy Baramidze the Georgian.

Turkmenistan's Ambassador to Belarus Ilya Veldzhanov represents the Central Asian republic.

Tajikistan's Prime Minister Akil Akilov presides over the meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of Governments.

The agenda has 28 issues.

The source said that the budget of CIS bodies and the transition to a common salary system for their personnel were expected to be one of most discussed subjects.

Source:

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=11016866&PageNum=0