CIS Summit Decides to Create Anti-terrorist CenterLeaders from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) approved a statute on Friday, December 1, to create a CIS anti-terrorist center.The 12 leaders, who are in the Belarussian capital of Minsk for a CIS summit, also decided to extend the mandate of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in the Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia. "The discussion focuses on joint measures against terrorism and extremism" and achieves "important positive results", said Russian President Vladimir Putin, who chaired the summit, at a press conference. The summit also decided to convene a meeting of the CIS heads of state to mark the 10th anniversary of the commonwealth. Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, who hosted the summit, stressed the importance of creating a free trade zone. "If the treaty on the CIS free trade zone had been completed and agreements on tariffs similar to bilateral ones had been achieved, commodity turnover within the CIS would have been higher, " he said. "We are advancing slowly but surely toward creating a free trade zone," he added. An agreement on cracking down on money laundering was also approved in the summit. The summit decided to hold its next session in Minsk in the early next June. |
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