Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko has been very active in recent days conveying the strategic danger and potential opportunities to several meetings of the Central Asian and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). These meetings included the Russia-Central Asia Summit and the CIS Council of Foreign Ministers meetings on Oct. 9, and the CIS Council of Heads of State meeting on Oct. 10.
On Oct. 10, Lukashenko addressed a narrow-format meeting of the CIS Heads of State Council. He urged cooperation among nations to address the crises in many areas, and to address some of those crises with economic cooperation, as BelTA news service has reported.
“‘Countering terrorism, strengthening border security, and combatting transnational crime have long ceased to be tasks for individual agencies. They have become components of the national security of each CIS state…. We are witnesses to and participants in tectonic geopolitical shifts. For some, they mean a difficult and bitter recalibration of ambitions to match real capabilities. For our Eurasia, however, they are a necessary, albeit painful, stage on the path to a growing global role and the strengthening of its status as one of the most important political and economic centers of a multipolar world,’ he emphasized.
“‘Therefore, our goal today is not only to identify risks and analyze opportunities, but to develop specific, practically viable mechanisms for interaction. … I would like to draw attention to several key strategic directions in the work of our organization. The absolute priority is to ensure security and preserve peace in the CIS. We must prevent the CIS states from being drawn into dangerous adventures that threaten both our region and humanity as a whole,’ he added.”
