Informal CIS summit kicks off in Yalta

Presidents Nursultan Nazarbayev (Kazakhsatn), Dmitry Medvedev (Russia), Viktor Yanukovych (Ukraine), Alexander Lukashenko (Belarus), Ilham Aliyev (Azerbaijan), Serzh Sargsyan (Armenia) take part in the meeting in the Livadia Palace in Yalta.

Opening the informal meeting, President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych expressed gratitude to all colleagues for support of his initiative to gather here in Crimea.

"We have opportunity to exchange opinions on the CIS activity in the friendly atmosphere. I am convinced that such communication in the friendly atmosphere which became a good tradition gives great opportunity to provide each other vision of further cooperation in the format of the CIS countries, to speak out on important issues and try to come to a common denominator", V.Yanukovych said.

The Ukrainian President proposed to discuss mechanisms of activation of economic cooperation within the framework of the Commonwealth and plans on joint projects implementation in development of the transport and tourism infrastructure.

"I hope that the result of our discussion will be priorities coordination in the sphere of economic interaction. The economic cooperation is determined by the member-states as a basic direction of the CIS activity. Its successful development will influence on the state in other spheres of interaction which represent mutual interest", V.Yanukovych said.

Besides, he noted that all summit participants will be interested in results of the G8 and G20 results which were held recently and in which Russian President Dmitry Medvedev took part.

"I am confirmed that our meeting will be constructive and useful for quality use of multilateral relations of our states, further activation of economic cooperation in the CIS format", V.Yanukovych resumed.