LEADERS OF SIX EX-SOVIET STATES DISCUSS CUSTOMS UNION, ENERGY MARKET, WTO BIDS
Vladimir Isachenkov

AP Worldstream
Aug 16, 2006

Russian President Vladimir Putin met Wednesday with leaders of five
other ex-Soviet states to discuss creating a customs union and common
energy market, and to coordinate their bids to join the World Trade
Organization.

Leaders from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
joined Putin at his Black Sea residence in the resort of Sochi for
talks focused on adding more substance to the Eurasian Economic
Community _ a grouping that aims to restore economic ties lost after
the 1991 Soviet collapse.

In addition to creating a customs union and a common energy market,
proposals include water energy regulation in Central Asia and setting
up a Eurasian hydroelectric consortium.

The grouping’s long-held cooperation plans have stalled amid
differences over the size of their economies and levels of their
development as Russia maneuvers to re-establish its clout in former
Soviet republics.

At the start of the session, Putin said the group’s members should
coordinate their efforts with their bids to join the World Trade
Organization.

"Our intentions to deepen cooperation in the framework of the Eurasian
Economic Community, including the setting up of a customs union, should
be clearly and precisely coordinated with the pace and details of WTO
accession for each of our nations," Putin said in televised remarks.

Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have been involved in WTO accession
talks, but for the grouping’s other members, joining the global trade
body has remained a distant perspective.

Armenian President Robert Kocharian was attending the meeting as an
observer, as was Ukraine’s new prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych, on
his first trip abroad since being confirmed to the post by parliament
earlier this month.

The Kremlin strongly backed Yanukovych’s fraud-marred 2004 presidential
bid, and his return to the premiership was widely seen as a victory
to Moscow’s interests in Ukraine and a counterbalance to Ukrainian
President Viktor Yushchenko’s efforts to move his nation closer to
the West.

Yanukovych on Tuesday said he and his Russian counterpart, Mikhail
Fradkov, reached a tentative deal on Russian natural gas supplies to
Ukraine next year.

He also reaffirmed his campaign pledge to make Russian the second
state language in Ukraine, but added that his Party of Regions for
that needs a two-third majority in parliament which it doesn’t have.

On Tuesday, Putin met for one-on-one talks with several of the leaders,
including Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The two leaders
signed a series of agreements intended to streamline customs tariffs
and tariffs for transporting Kazakh cargo via Russian railroad lines.