AZERBAIJAN – CIS
The Commonwealth of Independent States was established on the basis of the “agreement on the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States” signed on December 8,1991 in Minsk. On September 24, 1993, at the meeting of the CIS Council heads of State, a decision was adopted on the accession of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the CIS.
There are 9 areas of cooperation within the CIS and the organization’s main goal is to develop multilateral cooperation in the economic, military-political and humanitarian spheres.
At present, 8 charter bodies, 69 sectoral cooperation bodies and 15 other bodies operate in the CIS, in general, more than 90 bodies.
The Republic of Azerbaijan prefers to continue cooperation with CIS members on a bilateral basis. At the same time, the Republic of Azerbaijan is interested in continuing cooperation within the CIS on issues of interest to our country in the political, economic and humanitarian spheres and maintaining this organization as a dialogue platform between the participating states.
The decision of the Council of heads of state on the concept of the future development of the CIS dated October 5, 2007 was signed by our country with a special opinion and the main principles of the activities of the Republic of Azerbaijan within the CIS were reflected in this special opinion.
Although an agreement on the CIS free trade zone was signed at a meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State held in St. Petersburg on October 2011, 18, Azerbaijan did not sign it.
October 2015,16, president of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev attended and addressed a meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State. In his speech. He touched upon the important role of Azerbaijan as a part of North-South and East-West corridors, and invited other CIS countries to join the projects.
Despite the fact that expectations about the CIS have not been fully realized, Azerbaijan still considers it appropriate to continue its activity within the CIS. Although the accession of Azerbaijan to this organization did not lead to the achievement of all goals, it was important from the point of view of preventing certain plans of Armenia. Because without the consent of Azerbaijan, the CIS could not accept any serious documents. Azerbaijan was able to veto many documents of the CIS due to the conflict between them, taking into account the Armenian factor. In particular, the independent position of our country on the issues of creating a security system allowed to curb the biased political intentions of the Armenians. Azerbaijan prevented integration within the CIS to take place in such a way as to limit the independence of the republics, and managed to keep itself out of processes that it could not prevent.
On October 14, 2022, President Ilham Aliyev attended a meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Astana. At the meeting of the Council of Heads State, a number of decisions were made to ensure the security of the Commonwealth countries. The heads of State signed an agreement on cooperation in the fight against corruption.
According to this document, the CIS countries will provide each other with legal assistance during corruption offenses, exchange operational information and regulatory documents, develop appropriate programs, train and improve the qualifications of personnel.
The CIS Council of Heads of State also approved a program of cooperation to combat terrorism and extremism for 2023-2025.