The meeting was attended by officials of the CIS Executive Committee and the Secretariat of the IPA CIS Council, representatives of the Central Electoral Bodies and Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and the Russian Federation.

The meeting of the expert group was opened by the Director of the Organizational Department of the CIS Executive Committee Grakhovsky I.A. The meeting was chaired by Deputy Chairman of the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Uzbekistan Kuchkarov B.T.

The initiative of Uzbekistan which was previously put forward to establish an Advisory Council of Heads of Electoral Bodies of the CIS Member Nations was supported by the CIS member countries. The future Advisory Council is an intergovernmental body of the CIS, which is expected to further develop cooperation between the electoral bodies of the Commonwealth and assist to improve the electoral process in member states, taking into account their experience in conducting elections and referendum in accordance with international obligations and legislation.

The participants of the meeting considered the proposals and comments received from the Republic of Belarus, the Kyrgyz Republic and the Russian Federation on the draft Agreement on the Advisory Council of Heads of Electoral Bodies and its formation. Following the discussion, the experts agreed with the text of the draft Agreement and in the prescribed manner decided to send it to the member states for the conduct of internal conciliation procedures.

After the completion of the internal agreement procedures, the draft Agreement will be submitted to the Council of Heads of State of the CIS for consideration in the prescribed manner.

The meeting of the expert group was attended by a permanent member of the CEC Rakhimova G. and the Head of the International Cooperation Department Alimbaev M.

CEC Press Service