New competitions, the Friendship Games, may appear in the International Sports Calendar. President Serdar Berdimuhamedov came up with the initiative to hold them at the Friday meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State in Astana.

“We believe that today it is time to give the sports cooperation of the CIS a truly broad and systemic character,” the head of state said.

In this regard, the President of Turkmenistan proposed to create a Coordinating Committee for holding international sports games under the auspices of the CIS Council for Physical Culture and Sports and start work on organizing regular "Friendship Games", moreover, open for participation not only for athletes from the CIS, but also from other countries who show interest in them.

According to the Turkmen leader, the Friendship Games can be seasonal, that is, they can be summer and winter, held in the format of youth, youth competitions, in certain sports, etc.

“We have developed a draft Charter of the Coordinating Committee with a detailed description of its goals, composition, and organizational aspects. We count on the support of this initiative and are ready, taking into account the existing experience, the availability of good infrastructure, to hold the first Friendship Games in Turkmenistan,” said President Serdar Berdimuhamedov.