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At Russian president Vladimir Putin’s initiative, an informal annual summit of the CIS heads of state will be held on Tuesday in St Petersburg, TASS news agency reported. According to the source, the leaders of the states are expected to sum up the presidency of the Republic of Belarus at the Commonwealth, exchange views on common issues and discuss ways to increase the efficiency of the cooperation and further steps aimed at social-economic developments of the member states. 

As the Kremlin earlier reported, participants in the upcoming summit include President Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, First President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of the Kyrgyz Republic Sadyr Japarov, President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon, President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, and President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

The press service at the Government of Armenian has already confirmed that Nikol Pashinyan will pay a working visit to Russia on December 28 to take part in the informal meeting of the leaders of the CIS member states 

TASS reports that apart from the summit, separate meetings are planned on the sidelines of the event. "Thus, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan plans to converse with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev," the source said, reminding of Pashinyan's recent statement about holding an informal meeting with Aliyev.

"I will go to this meeting. So far, a bilateral meeting with Aliyev is not planned but an informal meeting will most probably take place," Pashinyan had said days ago in a live broadcast on his Facebook account.