RIA Novosti, Russia
March 28 2005

“CIVILIZED DIVORCE” CALLS FOR POST-SOVIET INTEGRATION: LAVROV

MOSCOW, March 28 (RIA Novosti) – Integration ought to come as a final
touch on the post-Soviet countries’ “civilized divorce”, points out
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.

“What we know as ‘civilized divorce’ not merely does not rule out
integration-on the contrary, it presupposes integration,” he said in
Moscow today.

“Integration will be a success if each of the partners determines the
main thing-whether we need such integration or not. When they do, all
problems left after the divorce will come to a positive solution. Of
than I am convinced.

“Such developments will promote all involved countries’ interests, if
those countries are to take a worthy place in the emergent new world
order,” the minister emphatically remarked.

“All CIS countries have made errors,” he acknowledged.

The Foreign Minister strongly called “to be aware of our nations’
essential interests”.

The Commonwealth of Independent States was established to secure a
civilized divorce, that is, to bring the Soviet Union’s collapse into
the most civilized channels possible, Russia’s President Vladimir
Putin said to a news conference in Yerevan, Armenian capital, March
25-Friday last.

The CIS coped with the task, though it had never posed whatever big
goals in the economic field or for integration, said Mr. Putin. He
described the Commonwealth as “a very useful club” for information
exchanges, and a rostrum to speak up on shared problems, and on
economic and humanitarian developments.