Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- As is known, on 8 December 1991, in Belovejskaya Pushcha, the leaders of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine signed a trilateral Agreement on the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States and a corresponding Statement.

On 21 December 1991, in Almaty, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan joined the agreement, Georgia in 1993, and Moldova in 1994. The result was the signing of the Almaty Declaration, which set out the goals and principles of the CIS. The fact of the termination of the existence of the USSR with the formation of the CIS was stated. A protocol to the agreement on the creation of the CIS was also signed.

The Almaty Declaration emphasized that the Commonwealth is neither a state nor a supranational entity. In addition, the supreme body of the Commonwealth was created - the Council of Heads of States and the Council of Heads of Governments. The Almaty meeting completed the process of transformation of the former republics of the USSR into independent states.

At a meeting of the Council of Heads of States in January 1993 in Minsk, the Charter of the Commonwealth was signed, which is one of the fundamental legal acts regulating the activities of the CIS. It fixes the readiness of countries to cooperate within the framework of the created association, outlines the main areas of cooperation and the conditions for membership of states in the Commonwealth.

In addition to the Charter, the CIS countries have adopted more than a thousand legal acts relating to interaction in a wide variety of areas of interstate relations.

The main form of work of the Council of Heads of State of the Commonwealth are regularly held meetings of the Council.

However, since August 2000, meetings of the CIS heads of states at an informal level have also been used. To this day, 19 informal meetings of the heads of members-states of the CIS have taken place, at which about 40 documents have been adopted (without the signing procedure).

The next informal meeting of the heads of the CIS countries was held on 26-27 December 2022 in St. Petersburg. It is noteworthy that the last similar meeting also took place in the “northern capital” of Russia, a week before the official summit in Astana on 14 October 2022.

As a rule, informal CIS summits are held without an official agenda. Within their framework, bilateral and trilateral meetings of the heads of states of the Commonwealth were also held.

An informal meeting of the Council of Heads of States is convened on the initiative of at least one of the CIS member states. It is held in the format proposed by the state in which such a meeting is held, taking into account the possible wishes of the participants in the meeting.

The main feature of the informal meeting is that it provides an opportunity to discuss the most pressing issues in a calm, friendly atmosphere. Within the framework of these meetings, members of the Commonwealth jointly strive to build cooperation in the spirit of good neighborliness, mutual benefit and interests.

From the current informal summit of the CIS heads of states, it is expected to sum up the results of the outgoing year and receive new impulses to strengthen cooperation between the countries next year.

According to experts, within the framework of the informal meeting, it is also planned to exchange views on the most important aspects of regional and international politics.

Thus, the informal summit of the CIS heads of state will create the ground for productive interaction between the members of the organization in the future. This format, unlike official analogues, encourages a more open dialogue, through which the most optimal points of contact, ways to solve current and topical problems within the organization, as well as interaction on regional, interregional and global policy issues are identified.

Azer Adygezalov, 

Leading Research Fellow at the International Institute of Central Asia, 

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in historical sciences.