CIS summit opens officially in the afternoon

The Foreign Ministers of the 11 CIS sates are expected today, October 8, at the Palace of the Republic in Chisinau at 13.15. They will have a meeting with Moldova's Acting President Mihai Ghimpu and will then start the Meeting of the Foreign Ministers Council. After the meeting, the Moldovan Foreign Minister Iurie Leanca and the Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee Sergei Lebedev will make statements for the press. There will be also held bilateral meetings. The President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan is to discuss issues concerning the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev. The meeting is organized by the co-presidents of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia's representative Yuri Merzlyakov, France's representative Bernard Fassier and U.S. representative Robert Bradtke, who are responsible for the mediation of the peaceful settlement of the conflict. The press service of the Foreign Ministry did not give details, but Lenaca said earlier that he will have a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to work out a plan of action for developing the Moldovan-Russian relations and discuss aspects of the Transnistrian conflict. The Meeting of CIS Heads of States will take place on Friday, October 9. Not all the presidents will come to Chisinau. Some of them will be replaced by Prime Ministers. The President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmonov will not take part in the summit as he has a tight schedule. The press reports say the Kazakh and Turkmen Presidents will also not attend. The organizers did not officially confirm this fact. After the meeting, Moldova's Head of Parliament Mihai Ghimpu and Serghei Lebedev will talk to the reporters. At the end of the summit, the members of the foreign delegations will attend a concert by the CIS Youth Symphony Orchestra, Info-Prim Neo reports.