Central Asian Cooperation Organization joins Eurasian Economic Community

Itar-Tass October 6 Central Asian-Economic Cooperation Organization will join the Eurasian Economic Community in line with a decision the presidents of Russia and Central-Asian countries have taken at a summit meeting underway here. President Emomali Rakhmonov of Tajikistan, who chairs the summit and who revealed the decision to reporters, said the participants had also decided he would remain at the post of chairman of the organization until its unification with Eurasec was finalized. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is taking part in a summit meeting of the Central-Asian Cooperation Organization's summit conference underway here, told reporters he was satisfied with a unanimous decision of the presidents taking part in the summit to join that organization to the Eurasian Economic Community. He hopes the sides will coordinate formal issues pertaining to that unification shortly. "The Russian delegation is satisfied with the results and we support the decision taken here today," Putin said. "To make it feasible, however, we must get consent from one more country that has Eurasec membership - Belarus," he said. "We've just talked to President Alexander Lukashenko and he fully supported the unification," Putin said. The Eurasian Economic Community organization was set up October 10, 2000. Its full-time members are Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, while Armenia, Moldova and Ukraine have the status of observers.