Informal Meeting of CIS Presidents to Be Held in Western Ukraine on Jan. 28-29

The fourth informal summit of leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States will take place in the Ivano-Frankovsk region, Western Ukraine on January 28-29th, as the region's Governor Mikhail Vyshyvanyuk told journalists.

The Minsk-based headquarters of the Executive Committee of the CIS announced that the proposal to hold the summit in Ukraine came from its President Leonid Kuchma. He voiced the proposal during an Oct. 7, 2002, meeting of CIS presidents in Chisinau.

During the meeting in the Carpathians, the leaders of the CIS will continue their discussion of issues dealing with further cooperation in the framework of the CIS.

The presidents do not sign any interstate documents during the informal meetings. Likewise, they don't have any official agenda.

The previous special summit meeting was held outside Alma Ata, Kazakhstan, in March, 2002.