In 2015, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) chairmanship will be passed on to Kazakhstan, Interfax news agency reported citing Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.   

“We agreed that Kazakhstan will assume the chairmanship and we will hold the next meeting of the CIS Heads of State Council in September-October [2015] in Astana [, the capital city of Kazakhstan]; we will note the exact date later,” Lukashenko stated at Friday’s Council meeting in the Belarusian capital city of Minsk.     

The Belarus president added, however, that even though considerable work has been done within the framework of the CIS development concept, the level of development in scientific cooperation was considered insufficient.    

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan also is participating in the Minsk meeting of the CIS Heads of State Council.