Turkmen president proposes establishing council of Central Asian leaders

President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has proposed establishing a council of Central Asian countries’ leaders. He voiced his idea during a visit to the neighboring Uzbekistan.

According to Berdymukhamedov, the council could provide a format for regular meetings in turn in every capital of the region.

As Turkmen official media report, Berdymukhamedov’s initiative envisages forming a pentalateral experts group that would examine all preliminary aspects in terms of contents and organization. After that, a meeting of foreign ministers is to be convened to draft the agenda and give recommendations for organizing a presidential summit.

Noteworthily, the initiative of Turkmen president was made public a month after a meeting of Central Asian leaders in Astana where Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov was not present sending instead a personal message to the president of Kazakhstan.

As EADaily reported earlier, the summit in Astana on March 15 was called the first consultative meeting of the Central Asian leaders and was held under an initiative of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Then, the presidents agreed to have such meetings annually. The next meeting is planned to be held in March 2019 in Tashkent.