Russia hopes that the UN General Assembly will grant the observer status to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) during its 70th session in September, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday, June 8, following talks with his Belarusian counterpart Vladimir Makei, TASS reports.

"We hope that [the EAEU] will receive observer status in September, at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly," the minister noted. "We coordinate the work on promoting the draft resolution at the UN with our partners."

UN General Assembly observer status has been granted to such organizations as the CIS, OSCE, the League of Arab States and the EU.

For his part, Vladimir Makei noted that "they had achieved the best possible results during Belarus’ chairmanship in EAEU." We were the first to assume this responsible function, our task was not only to offer an up-to-date action program but also lay the foundation of the chairmanship traditions," he added. "Our proposals are pragmatic and specific. In particular, this concerns implementation of the coordinated industrial policy, exports, industrial cooperation, import substitution, investment projects." "Overall, we are satisfied with cooperation with our partners," Makei said. "We welcome the constructive approach to these initiatives by all EAEU member states. The EAEU commission is successfully implementing the plan of action aimed at implementing the initiatives of the Belarusian chairmanship. We are satisfied with the work of the commission and relations with our partners."

"The issue of granting observer status in the UN General Assembly to the EAEU is on our current agenda. The relevant request has been sent to the UN secretariat by all EAEU member states. We are convinced that the EAEU will be given this status at the jubilee session of the United Nations. We plan to work together with our partners next year on the UN General Assembly’s resolution on cooperation between the EAEU and the United Nations," Makei said.