CIS leaders inspired by idea to organise Friendship Sports Games

At the summit in Astana, the CIS heads of state supported the initiative to organise Friendship Sports Games in the Commonwealth and instructed the executive committee to work on this issue, BelTA reports

The proposal to hold the Friendship Games was made by the President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedow. At a narrow-format meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State, Russian President Vladimir Putin supported the initiative saying, “It’s a good idea. Such a humanitarian issue.”

The discussion turned to how to correlate the new Games with the CIS Games, which were recently established and were held for the first time in 2021 in Kazan, and in 2023 they will be hosted by Belarus for the second time. “The executive committee [of the CIS] should tackle this issue, taking into account Serdar Berdimuhamedow’s proposal, he has a good idea,” the President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, said at the summit.

It is generally agreed that sports competitions should be organised on a rotational basis, similar to the Olympic Games and World Championships, so that they do not take place in parallel. “We need to hold both competitions. You hosted the Asian Winter Games, you have a perfect base in this regard. The Olympic Games were held in Sochi. Why not to hold [Friendship Games]? said the Belarusian leader. “They can be expanded and made open. Whoever wants to, come and perform.”

“In principle, it’s a good idea, and I think we will all agree,” President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev responded, also recalling that earlier there were other initiatives to support sports and humanitarian areas. In particular, a proposal was made to hold a film festival in the CIS with the presentation of the main prize: a kind of ‘Oscar’ of its own, and to bestow a CIS award in the field of science with a cash prize. The leader of Uzbekistan voiced an initiative to organise a CIS chess championship, to which all the heads of state remarked, “This is a good thing, it should be studied.”

“Belarus turned out to be the organiser [of the CIS Games] in this case. We will work with the executive committee and present you proposals in some form. We will decide how we will act further in Kyrgyzstan [at the next CIS summit in October 2023],” the Belarusian Head of State assured his colleagues.