Agence France Presse — English
August 27, 2005 Saturday 5:24 PM GMT

Western-leaning ex-Soviet republics see future for CIS

by Olga Nedbaeva
KAZAN, Russia Aug 27

The leaders of two former Soviet republics that have undergone
peaceful pro-Western revolutions said Saturday they thought the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), to which 12 ex-republics
belong, still had a future.

Leaders of the CIS members have been meeting in Kazan in Tatarstan at
a time when questions hang over the prospects for the CIS, of which
all ex-republics except the three Baltic states are members.

On Friday Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a gloomy assessment
of the outlook for the CIS, saying that modernising it would be an
uphill task.

But Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and his Ukrainian
counterpart Viktor Yushchenko, both beneficiaries of popular
pro-Western “orange” and “rose” movements, indicated they wanted to
remain within the CIS.

“Georgia does not consider the potential of the CIS is exhausted,”
Saakashvili told reporters Saturday.

“The CIS has problems that we can resolve to transform it into a more
efficient organisation.”

His optimism clashed with the gloom of experts who had predicted the
demise of the bloc.

Saakashvili said the idea put forward by Georgia and Ukraine for a
“community of democratic choice” stretching from the Baltic to the
Black and Caspian Seas and embracing Poland and Lithuania, seen by
Moscow as an anti-Russian initiative, was not suppposed to supplant
the CIS.

Yushchenko signed up to a declaration of a group of four countries —
with Belarus, Kakazhstan and Russia — aimed at creating a common
economic space, though he made clear that Ukraine would join “in its
own time” and opposed the idea, backed by Moscow, of a supranational
entity.

Ukraine’s economy minister had previously hinted that his country was
thinking of dropping out of the group. Yushchenko also used the
summit to invite Putin to visit Ukraine in the autumn.

But if Ukraine and Georgia were making gestures of warmth to Moscow
Turkmenistan took a different tack, saying that it wanted to become
an associate member of the CIS.

According to Saakashvili this would be “the first change of status
since the creation of the CIS in 1991, which is significant.”

The underlying tensions within the CIS, however, remain.

Georgia and Ukraine now look to the west after their 2003 and 2004
uprisings, as does Moldova, even if it remains under communist
leadership.

Kyrgyzstan has also seen the overthrow of its pro-Russian government
and while it performs a balancing act between east and west has taken
actions designed to make it more acceptable to the international
community.

Uzbekistan and Belarus are headed by authoritarian leaders while
Armenia and Azerbaijan are in a state of permanent conflict over the
enclave of Nagorny Karabakh, under Armenian control since it broke
away from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s.

Russia has watched with dismay the ebbing of its influence and seeks
to reform the CIS, suggesting a “radical” change of policy and
hinting that it will no longer supply cut-price energy to regimes
whose leaders it alleges are in the pay of the United States.