Azernews.Az

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday arrived in the Russian capital Moscow on a working visit to attend an informal meeting of CIS leaders.

Upon arrival at the Vnukovo-2 International Airport, where state flags of CIS member-states were hoisted, the Azerbaijani president was welcomed by senior Russian officials.

The Kremlin press service said the CIS meeting, being attended by the heads of all 11 countries of the Commonwealth, would have ``no fixed agenda`` but added ``much attention will be given to the deepening of economic integration on the commonwealth space.``

Such tie-less presidential meetings have become a tradition followed every year. The previous informal summit, dedicated to the 20th anniversary of CIS, was held in Moscow on December 20, 2011.

This year`s summit started late on Tuesday hot on the heels of the CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) meeting.

The CSTO summit was devoted to the 20-year anniversary of the signing of the treaty and the 10-year anniversary of the establishment of the organization.

The Kremlin press service said all the leaders from the CSTO countries were present, including Uzbekistan`s President Islam Karimov, who has often missed CSTO events in recent years. The other members are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.

These are the first summits of the two organizations since Vladimir Putin`s reelection as Russia`s president.

CSTO consensus on security
Leaders of CSTO have consensus on the approaches to the problems of international and regional security, Putin said after the CSTO meeting in a narrow circle, Russian RIA Novosti news agency reported.

``We had a very frank exchange of views on the current world problems, determined further joint efforts to counter the global and regional threats and challenges, shared the results of our analysis of the situation in the world and international security,`` Putin said, while opening the enlarged session of Tuesday`s summit.

``We have very close approaches to major issues of international and regional security. I believe that the CSTO role in the world will continue increasing,`` he added.

The Collective Security Treaty Organization is an intergovernmental military alliance of post-Soviet countries. It was created in 1992. The CSTO charter reaffirmed the desire of all participant countries to abstain from the threat of force. Signatories would not be able to join other military alliances or other groups of states, while aggression against one signatory would be considered as an aggression against all.