ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
March 4, 2005 Friday

Rushailo optimistic about CIS prospects

By Tigran Liloyan

YEREVAN

CIS Executive Secretary Vladimir Rushailo believes there are no
reasons for calling in question the future of the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS). He told journalists about it in Yerevan. At
the same time, he admitted that “there are some problems connected
with the fulfilment of the adopted resolutions within the CIS
framework.”

“Perhaps, the CIS Charter should be amended in the future. CIS was
created ten years ago, and the legal acts, that were adopted that
time, should be updated,” he said. According to his information, “an
inventory of the CIS legal basis is being drawn up, with a view to
establishing the spheres in which changes and amendments should be
made for the purpose of improving the efficiency of CIS.”

“We are examining the experience of the European Union and other
international organisations,” he continued. “In our opinion, the
experience of Latin America is interesting for us, especially in the
economic sphere: It is difficult to automatically apply some schemes
in CIS for a number of political, economic and other reasons. This is
why we should take the fragments, which proved to be especially
effective in other international organisations, and should try to use
them in CIS.”

Rushailo stressed that “it is the leaders of the CIS member countries
who will have a final say on all those matters.” CIS includes 12
countries: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and
Ukraine.