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Ex-Soviet grouping mulling reforms, says Putin

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  • Ex-Soviet grouping mulling reforms, says Putin

    Monday Morning, Lebanon
    April 11 2005

    Ex-Soviet grouping mulling reforms, says Putin


    Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the Commonwealth of
    Independent States (CIS), the organization of ex-Soviet states would
    discuss a possible reform of the grouping at its next summit in May.
    `Our partners have been making diverse proposals and giving various
    points of view', added Putin from his home on the Black Sea, where he
    was hosting Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko on an official
    visit.
    The upcoming summit is to be held in Moscow on May 8.
    The CIS was set up in 1991 in large part to fill the void left by the
    disappearance of the Soviet Union, and Putin admitted in March that
    its life span was limited, in contrast to the EU.
    `The European Union was created for the unification of Europe, but
    the CIS was set up to facilitate a civilized divorce', Putin said.
    The group includes all but three of the former Soviet republics.
    Three of its members, Georgia, Ukraine and most recently Kyrgzstan,
    have experienced uprisings that removed pro-Russian regimes in favot
    of Western-leaning ones.
    In a separate development, senior officials from three splinter
    territories in the old Soviet Union said last week they were ready
    for closer military cooperation as a result of the peaceful
    revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia.
    `The revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine have created a new
    geopolitical situation', commented Valeri Litskaya, external
    relations chief for Moldova's Russian-speaking separatist republic of
    Transdniestr.
    Litskaya said he feared `growing pressure' on the secessionist
    republics by Georgia and Moldova.
    `We have common interests, common threats and a historic common
    destiny that pushes us to come together and unite', said Sergei
    Chamba, external affairs head of Georgia's breakaway region of
    Abkhazia.
    Litskaya said a meeting of leaders from the breakaway territories and
    from the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh would meet in
    Abkhazia's main city of Sukhumi later this month.
    Chamba said that in preparing for the meeting, `we discussed the
    possibility of cooperating in the military domain'.
    The president of Georgia's separatist region of South Ossetia,
    Dimitri Medoyev, said that if his region was attacked, it would count
    in support from `brother peoples' in North Ossetia, Transdniestr and
    Abkhazia.
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