The 19th meeting of the Council of Heads of Migration Bodies of member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has today kicked off in Baku.

Head of the Department for Law Enforcement Bodies at the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan Fuad Alasgarov and Chairman of the Executive Committee and Executive Secretary of the CIS Sergey Lebedev addressed the event.

Russia's First Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Gorovoy was elected as Chairman of the Board for the year 2017.

In his remarks, Gorovoy highlighted the issues on the agenda.

Chief of the State Migration Service of Azerbaijan Firudin Nabiyev and Chairman of the Standing Commission of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly, MP Arif Rahimzade spoke at the event.

Eighteen issues, including the station of migration in CIS member states; implementation of "Cooperation program of CIS member states for the years 2015-2019 on combatting illegal migration" in 2015; results of working group meeting on the issue of developing general data base of invalid documents of citizens of CIS member states and drafting Regulation on the mentioned data base; practice of reception of mass flow persons in emergency to the territory of CIS member states and other issues were included in the agenda of the19th meeting of the Council.

The Council of Heads of Migration Bodies was established under the decision of Council of Heads of States dated October 5, 2007. CHMB includes authorities of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, and Russian Federation responsible for migration issues.

State Migration Service represents the Republic of Azerbaijan in the Council. Meetings in the frame of CHMB are held twice a year. At the Council gatherings, the situation of migration in member states, execution of decisions of Council of Heads of States, Council of Heads of Governments and CHMB and priority directions of regulating migration processes are discussed. In addition, broad information exchange is regularly conducted on new methods applied in member countries in the field of fight against illegal migration, existing best practices, as well as legislative base.

The 8th meeting of the Council was organized in Baku on September 28-30, 2010.