Ilham Aliyev attended the informal meeting of CIS heads of state

10 July 2010, 20:19

An informal meeting of CIS Heads of State took place in famous Livadia Palace of Yalta. President Ilham Aliyev attended the meeting.

President Ilham Aliyev and other Presidents arrived at Livadia Palace.

President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, welcomed President Ilham Aliyev in front of the Livadia Palace.

The Presidents of CIS countries gathered at the historical “White Hall” of the palace. Historically important “Yalta Conference” of 1945 took place in this hall.

Opening the meeting, the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich called the participants to discuss measures to step up economic cooperation among the CIS member countries, as well as implementation of joint projects in transport and tourism. Special attention was paid to the issue of liberalization of trade between the member states. It was agreed upon to continue working on a draft agreement on a free trade zone and include the issue in the agenda of the next gathering of the CIS Heads of State.

Humanitarian cooperation and other issues of mutual interest were also discussed during the meeting.

President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev congratulated the Ukrainian President on his birthday on behalf of all the guests and wished him success in his future activities.

Informal meetings of the Presidents have become a tradition within the CIS union. The first meeting of this kind was conducted on August 18, 2000 in Yalta. Such informal meetings do not follow agendas and adoption of decisions on particular issues are not meant for this kind of meetings. Only urgent issues can be dealt with as exceptional cases.

Presidents of six CIS countries – Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia and Executive Secretary of the union participated in the informal meeting.

The initiator of Yalta meeting was Ukraine.

The Presidents posed for photographs at the end of the meeting.