THE FIFTH MEETING OF THE HEADS OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AGENCIES WAS HELD IN THE "CENTRAL ASIA - RUSSIA" FORMAT

On April 22, 2022, the fifth meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs in the “Central Asia – Russia” format was held via videoconferencing.

The meeting was attended by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan Mukhtar Tleuberdi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kyrgyz Republic Ruslan Kazakbaev, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Tajikistan Sirozhiddin Mukhriddin, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan Rashid Meredov, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Uzbekistan Sardor Umurzakov, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov.

During the meeting, issues on further building up multilateral cooperation were discussed. In particular, the heads of the foreign policy agencies reviewed the interaction in the political, trade-economic and cultural-humanitarian spheres between the countries of Central Asia and Russia. The diplomats also touched upon the issues of maintaining regional stability and security in the region.

In his speech, noting the established positive pace of development of interstate relations, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan R.Meredov emphasized the importance of this format in ensuring the progressive growth of cooperation in the region.

R. Meredov also noted the importance of creating strong conditions for maintaining security in the region, opportunities for broad mutually beneficial cooperation in the economy and trade, industry, energy, transport, healthcare, ecology and environmental protection.

Speaking about the situation in Afghanistan, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of of Turkmenistan stressed that it is necessary to continue active cooperation on solving the Afghan problem, not to slow down the pace of work in this direction.

Another actual topic of the meeting was the coronavirus pandemic. In this regard, the Turkmen side drew the attention of the participants to the proposal of the President of Turkmenistan to establish a regional center for virology and bacteriology, believing that this could be a step towards consolidating joint decisions on this issue.