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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Colleagues,

I am pleased to welcome such a representative meeting of the security council secretaries of the CIS members states. Your regular meetings are important for strengthening and developing the CIS collective security system, ensuring the sovereignty and national interests of all CIS states and for their confident, steady socioeconomic development.

The agenda of the 11^th regular meeting is full of substantive issues. You will discuss the situation in the region and the world in general, share experience and practical developments that promote the protection of our citizens against internal and external threats, and map out our joint steps for the future.

We are seeing that the international situation remains very complicated and tense. Old conflicts have reignited and new hotbeds of conflict have appeared in a number of regions, especially in the Middle East where civilians are the hardest hit by the latest round of the Palestine-Israel confrontation that has been provoked.

This global instability affects Eurasia as well. Moreover, actions of certain states are aimed at undermining the legitimate authorities, public stability and traditional values in the CIS countries and upending our traditionally close trade, cooperation and cultural ties.

We are facing persistent threats common to all of us, such as terrorism and organised crime, drug trafficking and illegal migration, radicalism and extremism, as well as economic, information, technological and biological security risks.

All this requires not only a coordinated collective response but also large-scale preventive efforts. It is vital, among other things, to make utmost use of the forecast, information and analytical capabilities of the security councils for an in-depth, comprehensive examination of the situation in the CIS and the world in general, in order to clearly lay out the priorities and timely adjust the relevant strategic planning documents.

I am confident that your cooperation will continue promoting stability and security of the CIS states and facilitating the development of coordinated approaches to reaching our common goals.

I wish you success.