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August 24 this year, Ufa (Republic of Bashkortostan) hosted a joint extended meeting of the General Council of the Eurasian Peoples' Assembly and the Public Council of the Representation of the Eurasian Peoples' Assembly in the Republic of Bashkortostan. The meeting considered the issue of the activities of the representative offices of the organization.
The meeting was attended by the Secretary General of the Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly Andrey Belianinov, First Deputy Secretary General - Head of the General Secretariat of the Assembly Svetlana Smirnova, Prime Minister of the Government of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Head of the Regional Representative Office of the Assembly Andrei Nazarov, Director of the SCO Public Diplomacy Center in the Republic of Uzbekistan Kabuljon Sabirov, Director of the SCO Center for Public Diplomacy in the Russian Federation Stanislav Korolev, Director of the SCO Center for Friendship and Cooperation in Tajikistan, Rector of the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan Abdukhalil Gafurzoda, Chairman of the Council of the Association of Russian Diplomats Igor Khalevinsky, President of the Italian-Russian Chamber of Commerce in Moscow Ferdinando Pelazzo, as well as members of the General Council from more than 15 countries of Eurasia.
Opening the meeting, Secretary General of the Eurasian Peoples' Assembly Andrei Belianinov noted that the Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt and others show great interest in cooperation today. The Eurasian Peoples' Assembly actively cooperates in the scientific, educational and youth fields with the Association of Arab Universities and the Youth Union of Arab Universities. The Association brings together more than 400 Arab higher education institutions.
“Everything is dynamically developing in our world. Today we actively work with Arab countries, including the Association of Arab Universities. The countries of the African continent express great interest in our work, considering themselves part of Eurasia. And today our members from Bulgaria, Switzerland, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Austria, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and other countries are with us here. Thank you, colleagues. The peoples of the countries want to be friends, people always need warm communication,” - the Secretary General said.
Svetlana Smirnova spoke about the outcomes of the Assembly's work. She noted that the Eurasian Peoples' Assembly continues to expand interaction with partners around the world. So, in 2023, a representative office was opened in the Arab Republic of Egypt, it is planned to open representative offices in the Republic of Tunisia, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Republic of Djibouti, the Lebanese Republic, and the Republic of Tajikistan. New members of the organization work in the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Madagascar, India, Tunisia and other countries. The expanding of the Assembly activities requires coordination and sharing of best practices. Significant and large-scale projects are being implemented - "Immortal Memory", "Won Together", "Eurasia Kids" and others.
Describing the work of the Representation of the Eurasian Peoples' Assembly in the Republic of Bashkortostan, the First Deputy Secretary General - Head of the Assembly General Secretariat noted it as "one of the best".
“Our task today is to consider the work of the Representative Offices of the Eurasian Peoples' Assembly in the regions of Russia and different countries of the world. We believe that the Representative Office of our organization in Bashkortostan is one of the best and we are grateful to the Head of the Republic Radiy Khabirov for recommending the candidacy of the Prime Minister of the Government of Bashkortostan Andrey Nazarov, who is the Head the Representative Office in the region. In the near future, we would like to cover all of Eurasia with our Representative Offices. Work to strengthen cooperation and peace should be in full swing in all countries of Eurasia.”
In his speech, Andrey Nazarov expressed his gratitude to the leadership of the Eurasian Peoples' Assembly for the comprehensive support of the Bashkortostan Representation and shared his experience with his colleagues.
“Today, the Representative Office of the Assembly includes 52 members - these are representatives of the largest business associations, trade unions, public and sports organizations. The structure of the Representative Offic includes 4 specialized committees: for the support and development of industry, for cooperation with Italy, for the development of spiritual culture, literature and art, and for the development of non-Olympic and national sports. The practice of opening local representative offices has been established. In particular, a local branch has been opened in the city of Sibay,” Andrey Nazarov said.
He noted that the members of the Representative Office managed to create a trusting atmosphere for fruitful cooperation between Italian and Russian entrepreneurs, organized a number of major events in sports, tourism, culture, business: the international chess tournament “Friendship of Peoples”, the sports forum “Sport. Leadership. Unity”, the annual festival “Bruderfest”. All this makes it possible to effectively form mutual understanding and strengthen ties at the level of public diplomacy.
For the current and next year, the Representative Office of the Republic also plans events aimed at international and business cooperation, exchange of experience and information in tourism, culture, education, sports, as well as in the commercial and industrial environment, including export, import, finance, investment and innovation.
The Assembly Secretary General noted that the experience of the Representative Office of Bashkortostan can be used to improve the work of other Representative Offices and establish more effective interaction with regional structures.
In addition to his speech, Andrey Nazarov announced an initiative - to hold a television project "Voice of Eurasia". He proposed to implement it under the auspices of the Eurasian Peoples' Assembly. Amina Shafikova, Minister of Culture of the Republic of Bashkortostan, spoke about the project in more detail.
Andrey Belyaninov supported the idea of the “Voice of Eurasia” project and noted that the project would start in Bashkortostan.
Ferdinando Pelazzo, President of the Italian-Russian Chamber of Commerce in Moscow, in his speech mentioned the Republic of Bashkortostan and stressed that the people, companies, structures that are now building business, strengthening ties between peoples, in spite of everything, will be the main driving force in developing relationships in the future.
“There is an Italian community in Bashkortostan, which has long been a reliable partner for Italy in Russia. We have only one representative office and it is located here in Ufa. It is easy to work in the region, because there is a support... Relations between our countries have developed historically and we need to thank all those who are now working on Italy-Russia cooperation. It is they who will continue to build relationships,” - said Pelazzo.
During the meeting, there was signed an agreement on cooperation between the International Union of Non-Governmental Organizations "Eurasian Peoples' Assembly" and the regional public organization "Italian traditions and culture "SANT AGOSTINO".
The meeting paid special attention to the development of sports and holding in Ufa on August 24 - 27 the I International Sports Games of National and Non-Olympic sports "Towards the Eurasiada".
The Secretary General of the Eurasian Peoples' Assembly made a proposal to establish the Eurasian Olympic Committee. In his opinion, this will allow building closer cooperation between states in sports.
“The creation of the Eurasian Olympic Committee, including national sports of the peoples of Eurasia, will make it possible to build closer co-operation between states in sports and will create platforms for the development of various areas of sports in a new format,” Andrey Belianinov said. - This will contribute to the interests of sports to a greater extent than business and politics. People choose sports and health.”
Another initiative that the Secretary General addressed to the participants of the meeting is to create the Eurasian Council of Trade Unions and continue work on the formation of a global platform for trade union partnership as a public institution of the international network of trade unions. The proposal was supported unanimously.
During the meeting, there was held voting for the admission of new members to the Supreme Advisory Council of the Eurasian Peoples' Assembly. Following the results of the voting, it included:
- Alimov Rashid Kutbiddinovich, Professor of the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan and the Taihe Institute (China), ex-Secretary General of the SCO, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary;
- Matubraimov Almambet Matubraimovich, Chairman of the Council of the Assembly of the People of Kyrgyzstan, ex-Speaker of the Assembly of People's Representatives (Upper House) of the Jogorku Kenesh (Parliament) of the Kyrgyz Republic;
- Khazin Mikhail Leonidovich, Russian public figure and economist, Head of the Economic Research Foundation.
Also, General Council members decided to continue the practice of creating Public Councils under the Representations of the Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly, work to preserve the common historical memory of many countries and counteract the distortion of historical facts, further develop the popularization of folk sports games, national and non-Olympic sports, to intensify preparatory activities for EURASIADA. We recommended that the Representative Offices pay attention to working with the young generation of the Eurasian countries, providing support to the Eurasian Youth Assembly, and introducing new formats of cooperation between youth institutions of civil society.
Ahead is the further development of the Eurasian Peoples' Assembly as an important tool of public diplomacy and the search for new innovative solutions to strengthen mutual contacts in the interests of the sustainable development of mankind.
