AMID DEEPENING CRACKS IN POST-SOVIET PACT, LEADERS OF FORMER REPUBLICS TO HOLD SUMMIT
By MIKE ECKEL

The Associated Press
08/25/05 13:19 EDT

KAZAN, Russia (AP) – Leaders from 12 former Soviet republics meet here
Friday amid deepening cracks in the alliance and growing efforts by
some members to temper Russia’s influence in the region and increase
ties with the West.

President Vladimir Putin will host the meeting of the Commonwealth
of Independent States against the backdrop of millennial anniversary
celebrations in this central Russian city some 720 kilometers (450
miles) east of Moscow.

Mass upheavals in Ukraine and Georgia, which brought pro-Western
leaders to power, have threatened to pull the CIS apart. Their
presidents – Viktor Yushchenko and Mikhail Saakashvili – met at a
Georgian spa two weeks ago and discussed setting up a new regional
alliance to champion democracy in former Soviet space.

The Commonwealth of Democratic Choice, the two leaders said in a
statement, would “help usher in a new era of democracy, security,
stability and peace across Europe, from the Atlantic to the Caspian
Sea.”

Such a group would further irk Russia, which has always dominated the
CIS. Both Georgia and Ukraine have made membership in the European
Union and NATO priorities, and Moldova has taken a sharp Westward
turn – and Moscow’s ties with all three countries have consequently
deteriorated.

Russia has already showed signs it is trying to devise a new rubric
for dealing with former Soviet republics.

On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow should base its
relations on “international norms” – a hint that Russia may eventually
stop providing its substantial energy resources to the three countries
at subsidized prices.

The Foreign Ministry also said during a meeting of CIS foreign
ministers in Moscow this week that ways to reform the bloc were
also discussed.

Sergei Karaganov, of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policies,
a leading think-tank, called the CIS a defunct organization.

“The CIS, in its old form, is dead. It is no longer an integration
organization but, rather, a forum for consultations between state
leaders in the post-Soviet space,” Karaganov was quoted as saying by
the Interfax news agency.

The CIS was set up following the demise of the Soviet Union with the
aim of preserving economic and defense ties. It does not include the
Baltic states.

Also expected on the sidelines of the CIS summit is a meeting between
Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliev. Tensions between the two leaders’ countries remains high, more
than a decade after a cease-fire was signed ending open fighting over
the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Tens of thousands were killed and more than a million displaced in the
fighting, and the lack of resolution over the status of the enclave
– now controlled by ethnic Armenians – has impeded development in
the region.