OMM Redaksiyası
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will attend a full-format meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Turkmenistan on Wednesday for the first time, the Kremlin said.
Yuri Ushakov, an aide to the Russian president, said an Iranian president had been invited to a full-format CIS meeting for the first time in the organization’s history.
The CIS is a regional intergovernmental organization established in 1991 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Its members are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Pezeshkian’s invitation comes as Moscow and Tehran continue to strengthen ties. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pezeshkian signed a 20-year “comprehensive strategic partnership agreement” in Moscow in early 2024 covering trade, military cooperation, science, education and culture.
Meeting between Putin and Pashinyan not planned
Ushakov said no separate meeting between Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was planned on the sidelines of the CIS summit in Avaza, Turkmenistan.
Relations between Moscow and Yerevan have cooled in recent years. Armenia froze its participation in the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization in February 2024 after the bloc did not intervene during Azerbaijan’s 2023 military operation in Garabagh.
Pashinyan’s statements that Armenia intends to apply for membership in the European Union have also strained ties between the two countries. The Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union has said it could consider Armenia’s removal from the bloc if the country moves toward EU membership.
Putin has previously said that simultaneous membership in the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union is “incompatible.”
