In his speech at the CIS summit, Rahmon pays attention to the alarming scale of increasing security threats

On Friday October 13, Kyrgyzstan hosted the annual Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) heads of state summit in Bishkek.In attendance were presidents of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.Meanwhile, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan informed Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov in a telephone conversation earlier last week that he will not be attending the meeting.  Armenia’s absence from the summit flows from a deterioration in relations between Yerevan and Moscow.The Tajik president’s official website says the heads of state discussed the current issues of cooperation within the framework of the CIS and exchanged views on a number of international and regional issues.Speaking at the meeting, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon reportedly expressed readiness to further fill the agenda of the CIS with practical content and voiced his opinion on the future development of the CIS.The head of state expressed confidence that the decisions made during the meeting will give an additional boost to multilateral cooperation in all areas of cooperation within the CIS.On the basis of issues of trade and economic cooperation, Rahmon reportedly emphasized that in the current conditions, the CIS member nations are facing threats to economic security and increasing risks to their national economies.In this regard, the importance of continuous implementation of the CIS Economic Development Strategy for the period up to 2030 was emphasized.  During the implementation of the CIS economic development strategy, the resource, production and financial capabilities of the member states, as well as the geo-economic and geo-political situation of the region and the world should be taken into account, Emomali Rahmon said.The head of state emphasized that issues of promotion of "green economy", especially "green energy", as well as issues of climate change remain important directions of the CIS.  In this context, Tajikistan's determination to further advance the water and climate agenda at the global level was confirmed, and hopes were expressed for further constructive cooperation of CIS member states in this direction.Rahmon stressed the importance of further strengthening the cultural and humanitarian agenda and expressed the readiness of Tajikistan to host the Fifth Forum of scientists of CIS member states next year in the republic.In his speech, Tajik leader reportedly also paid attention to the alarming scale of increasing security threats.  Attention was paid to the importance of continuing the practical implementation of decisions and documents adopted within the framework of the CIS in the area of combating terrorism, extremism, drug trafficking, cybercrime and other manifestations of organized cross-border crimes, and the need to take measures to further strengthen the normative framework of the CIS in the security sector was emphasized.Based on the results of the summit, 15 decisions and documents were adopted. The leadership of the CIS was transferred to the Russian Federation.The CIS covers much of the former Soviet Union, including as full members Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Moldova, as well as Turkmenistan as an “associate.”  Ukraine, which participated in the CIS since its inception, never actually ratified its charter – disagreeing with the document’s positioning of Russia as the only legal successor state to the Soviet Union.  Kyiv ceased most engagement with the CIS in 2014 and formally withdrew its representatives in 2018.