CIS MARKS 16TH ANNIVERSARY
PanARMENIAN.Net
21.12.2007 15:26 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) marks
its 16th anniversary on December 21.
Initiating the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the autumn of 1991,
the leaders of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine met on December 8 in the
Belovezhskaya Pushcha Natural Reserve, about 50 km north of Brest in
Belarus, and signed an agreement establishing the CIS.
At the same time they announced that the new alliance would be open
to all republics of the former Soviet Union, as well as other nations
sharing the same goals.
On December 21, 1991, the leaders of eleven of the fifteen constituent
republics of the Soviet Union met in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, and signed
the charter, thus de facto ratifying the initial CIS treaty. The
Soviet government had already recognized the independence of Estonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania on September 6, 1991, and the three Baltic
nations refused to join the CIS.
Georgia and Azerbaijan were initially reluctant to join the CIS but
eventually did so. The CIS charter stated that all the members were
sovereign and independent nations and thereby effectively abolished
the Soviet Union.
The ten original member states were Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and
Uzbekistan. Azerbaijan joined the CIS in September 1993 and Georgia
joined in December.
Presently, over 60 coordinating and consultative bodies function within
the CIS, the major being the Council of Heads of State, Council of
Heads of Government, Council of Foreign Ministers, Council of Defense
Ministers, Economic Court, Interparliamentary Assembly, etc.
Organizations like the EurAsEC, CSTO, GUAM also function within the
Commonwealth.