The Jamestown Foundation
Thursday, May 12, 2005 — Volume 2, Issue 93
Eurasia Daily Monitor
CIS SUMMIT: DECORATIVE, YET ACRIMONIOUS
by Vladimir Socor
Russian President Vladimir Putin and the presidents of nine other CIS member
countries attended an informal CIS summit on May 8 in Moscow, as part of
Russia’s anniversary celebrations of victory in the Second World War.
Presidents Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia and Ilham Aliev of Azerbaijan
stayed away from the summit: Saakashvili did so because of Russian
stonewalling on an agreement (or presidential joint declaration) on the
withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgia. Aliev stayed away because the CIS
summit’s date coincided with that of the 1993 capture of the Azeri-inhabited
town of Shusha in Karabakh by Armenian forces.
In an inauspicious curtain-raiser for the summit, Russian Security Council
Secretary Igor Ivanov publicly described the recent political changes in
Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan as “coups” (perevoroty), whereby power
changed hands in “unconstitutional” ways, with “violations of basic
democratic principles” (Strategiya Rossii, May 2005, cited by Interfax, May
5). Belarusan president Alexander Lukashenka, who is on record as sharing
that assessment, remarked sarcastically that this CIS summit, “the first
since those notorious events, will acquaint us with somebody or other ” —
i.e., the new presidents of Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. As regards the absent
Georgian president, Lukashenka termed him “too immature to understand the
essence” of the Moscow anniversary (Interfax, May 8).
Responding to Ivanov, a statement by Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
pointed out that Ukraine’s Constitutional Court and Parliament had
invalidated the fraudulent returns of the presidential election runoff and
ordered a repeat runoff, the conduct and result of which was validated by
democratic countries and international organizations (Interfax-Ukraine, May
7). Kyiv’s statement stopped short of mentioning that the Russian-led CIS
election monitoring mission had blessed the fraudulent returns and disputed
the internationally-validated ones.
Commenting on this CIS summit — the first he attended as president of
Ukraine — Viktor Yushchenko pointed out that the organization was “of
little use” to anyone (AP, May 9) and that the “CIS is history.” The
organization, he observed, lacked a project that could become the basis for
economic cooperation. Summing up Ukraine’s familiar position, Yushchenko
noted that only a Free Trade Zone, devoid of political connotations, can
begin to lay the foundation for cooperation within the CIS (Ukrainian TV
Channel Five, May 8).
Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin termed the CIS in its present form a
mere “discussion club.” Moldova, he told Russian state radio, has
irreversibly chosen the European orientation as its top priority. The
country values its “historically constituted” relations with Russia, but the
relations are adversely affected by Russia’s support for the Tiraspol
secessionist regime, Voronin pointed out. He referred to the GUAM summit,
recently held in Chisinau, as an indicator of the common European
orientation of that group’s participant countries (Radio Mayak, May 8, cited
by Moldpres, May 9).
Armenia’s Ambassador to Russia, Armen Smbatian, described the CIS in the
run-up to the summit as “a transitional organization, gradually descending
into history, making room for direct bilateral relations among member
states” (PanArmenian News, April 30). His statement reflects Armenia’s
traditional policy (predating the CIS’ eclipse) of shunning multilateral CIS
undertakings and emphasizing instead its purely bilateral ties with Russia.
Turkmen President Saparmurad Niyazov, who very rarely attends CIS summits,
made an exception in this case to honor the memory of his father, who was
killed in the Second World War. While in Moscow, Niyazov joined Yushchenko
to finalize a Ukrainian-Turkmen proposal regarding a tripartite consortium
with Russia on the transport of Turkmen natural gas. Putin took delivery of
the document during the summit for early consideration (Interfax, May 8).
Kyrgyz Acting President Kurmanbek Bakyiev used the occasion to solicit
Russian assistance in overhauling Soviet-era industrial enterprises, idle
for more than a decade in Kyrgyzstan. Bakyiev proposed transferring such
enterprises to Russian ownership in lieu of repayment of Kyrgyz debts to
Russia. Putin seemed open to the proposal, citing the 2002 Russia-Armenia
agreements on debt-for-property swaps as a model for to be followed in
Kyrgyzstan’s case (Interfax, May 8).
It was Uzbek President Islam Karimov who publicly offered the most scathing
assessment, both retrospective and current, of the CIS: “cooperation in name
only,” “shallow ideas,” “all sorts of cooperation organizations that have
been set up during more than 10 years, these ill-thought games that have
today brought a major crisis to the CIS. … This time, too, the [Moscow]
meeting is likely to fail to resolve any serious issues” (Uzbek Television
Channel One, May 8).
Indeed the only result of this summit turned out to be a declaration of
intent to “consider the possibility” of adopting an agreement on
humanitarian cooperation at a follow-up CIS summit (Interfax, May 8).
–Vladimir Socor