International Herald Tribune, France
June 10 2007
Heads of ex-Soviet states meet amid debate over future of their loose
alliance
The Associated PressPublished: June 10, 2007
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia: The heads of 12 ex-Soviet republics met
Sunday to discuss ways of reforming their loose regional alliance,
but the informal summit only underscored uncertainty over the
grouping’s future.
Formed on the ashes of the Soviet Union, the Moscow-dominated
Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS, has been unable to
resolve long-running conflicts between its members and skeptics see
it as little more than a talking shop.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are at loggerheads over the disputed territory
of Nagorno-Karabakh and Russia has imposed a punishing transport and
travel ban and economic sanctions against Georgia.
The group includes all former Soviet republics except the three
Baltic nations.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, whose oil-rich Central Asian
nation holds the group’s rotating presidency, acknowledged the CIS
had been experiencing stagnation over recent years.
"The energy of running away turned out to be stronger than our
integration efforts," he told a two-day economic forum in St.
Petersburg. Nazarbayev called for "optimizing (the group’s)
structure, improving the efficiency of the executive committee."
In his opening remarks to an informal CIS summit being held at the
same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the meeting would be
devoted to economic cooperation between CIS members, adding "there
are also other problems."
Speaking to journalists at the end of the meeting, Nazrbayev said the
leaders agreed to work in small steps.
"In order to avoid discussing many questions and have disappointments
over unfulfilled documents it was decided to solve one question per
year," Nazarbayev said. This year the leaders would consider the
issue of migration, he said. The next CIS summit will be held in the
Tajik capital Dushanbe in October.
The RIA-Novosti news agency reported, citing a unnamed Russian
government official, that the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan
held a rare meeting on the sidelines of the summit to discuss the
Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. Most discussions at CIS summits are held
behind closed doors, and information about what goes on comes out
mostly in reports leaders’ aides leak to their country’s reporters.
The territory is inside Azerbaijan but has been controlled by ethnic
Armenian forces since a 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year conflict
that killed some 30,000 people and drove more than 1 million from
their homes.
Tensions remain high between the two nations despite more than a
decade of coaxing from international mediators led by the United
States, Russia and France to resolve the region’s status.