Tajik President Emomali Rahmon is visiting Moscow on October 7-8 to participate in the next meeting of CIS Council of Heads of State, Russia’s RIA Novosti reports citing the Russian Foreign Ministry.  

During a visit, Tajik leader is expected to hold a number of bilateral meetings with his counterparts from the CIS member nations. 

Meanwhile, Asia-Plus was still unable to get official confirmation of this information from the tajik president’s press service.  

The next meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State will take place in Moscow tomorrow.    

The Council of Heads of State of the CIS is a working body in the Commonwealth of Independent States.  It serves as the supreme body of the CIS, and includes all the chiefs of state of CIS member nations.  Regular meetings of the council are held annually.  It was created following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, directly replacing the State Council of the Soviet Union.  

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.  Kiev ceased most engagement with the CIS in 2014 and formally withdrew its representatives in 2018.

Meanwhile, the CIS Council of Foreign Ministers is meeting in Moscow today under the chairmanship of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.  Russia’s Interfax news agency, citing  Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, reported on October 2 that  the meeting participants ar expected to sum up the tentative results of the joint work carried out during Russia's chairmanship of the organization in 2024 and discuss the prospects for cooperation in the CIS, including deepening economic integration, countering challenges and threats, and expanding humanitarian contacts, Zakharova was quoted as saying.

According to her, special attention will be given to preparing for and celebrating the 80th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War.