YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan delivered a speech during the narrow-format meeting of the heads of the CIS member states.

As “Armenpress” was informed from the press service of the Armenian President’s Office, the President started his speech extending condolences to the acting head and Prime Minister of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev on the death of Islam Karimov.

“Dear partners,

This is a jubilee year for both the CIS and our countries. We mark the 25th anniversary of the independence of our states and the Commonwealth. During this period the CIS has demonstrated itself as an important inter-governmental format aimed at finding the answers to difficult questions that have faced us since early 1990s.

The Commonwealth has contributed to the preservation of economic, humanitarian, political and other relations in the post-Soviet area”, President Sargsyan said, adding that not all expectations have been met and not all issues have received appropriate solutions. “Partially, it can be explained by different attitudes of the member states to the role and future vision of the Commonwealth”.

President Sargsyan also touched upon the issues of conflicts, terrorism, economic instability and migrant crisis. In this context he stated that even in the CIS area there are hot spots. “In April of this year war broke out in Nagorno Karabakh for the first time since the 1994 ceasefire. Those operations claimed lives of not only servicemen, but also civilians, inflicting a blow to the negotiation process.

I touch upon this issue as the ceasefire agreement was signed right here, in Bishkek, based on the provisions of the statements issues on April 15, 1994 by  the Council of the heads of CIS member-states. Nursultan Nazarbayev is a witness, he was a participant.

This means that the CIS member states in some sense play as a guarantor of the implementation of this agreement of indefinite duration”, President Sargsyan said.

The President of Armenia expressed gratitude to the Russian president Vladimir Putin for his combined efforts with the other two OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair states, the USA and France, to reach a political settlement for Nagorno Karabakh conflict. He also talked about the consensus within the Armenian parliament over the Electoral Code and ended the speech by congratulating the Russian side on upcoming assumption of chairmanship of the CIS.