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Lukashenka leaves for Kazakhstan

 

Alyaksandr Lukashenka left for Kazakhstan on Tuesday for a two-day working visit.

On May 29, Mr. Lukashenka is to take part in a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council of the Customs Union of Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan, which will focus on the development prospects of the main areas of integration and a draft agreement on the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union, according the Belarusian leader’s press office.

Apart from Mr. Lukashenka, the meeting will feature Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan.

The three heads of state will later be joined by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev.

Kyrgyzstan has formally applied for membership in the Customs Union and Ukraine has filed an application for observer status, which is why issues of “integration cooperation” will be discussed with the leaders of these countries during a separate meeting, Altai Abibullayev, spokesman for Kazakhstan's foreign ministry, told reporters on Monday.

Messrs. Nazarbayev, Atambayev and Putin will come to Astana from Kyrgyzstan’s capital city of Bishkek, where an informal summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) will take place on Tuesday.

According to the CSTO press office, the summit was organized for the heads of the member countries situated in the Central Asian region, which is why it will be attended only by the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.

In mid-April, the press office said that the leaders of all CSTO member countries would gather in Bishkek for the summit.

There has been speculation in the media that the summit’s format was changed at the last minute to allow Alyaksandr Lukashenka not to travel to Kyrgyzstan amid a row between Minsk and Bishkek over Mr. Lukashenka’s refusal to extradite former Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev and his brother Zhanybek. // BelaPAN