Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

A Council Without Ministers

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • A Council Without Ministers

    A COUNCIL WITHOUT MINISTERS
    Nikolay Filchenko and Petr

    Kommersant, Russia
    Oct 17 2006

    // The Countries of the Commonwealth Have Forgotten about the CIS

    A summit of the Council of Foreign Affairs Ministers of the CIS
    Countries (SMID CIS) took place yesterday in Minsk. The meeting
    demonstrated that interest in the organization in the ex-Soviet
    world has dwindled to almost nothing: only three out of 12 ministers
    bothered to attend. The basic reasons for the current apathy are
    discord between Russia and Kazakhstan on the issue of reform in the
    CIS and fears raised by the Kremlin's anti-Georgian campaign.

    The SMID CIS summit in Minsk was opened by Belorussian President
    Alexander Luakshenko, who reminded the assembled delegates that this
    year marks the 15th anniversary of the founding of the Commonwealth of
    Independent States (CIS). The meeting, however, had nothing approaching
    a holiday tone. Attendance was dismal: out of 12 foreign affairs
    ministers in the CIS countries, only Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
    Lavrov, who served as chairman, and his Kazakh colleague Kasymzhomart
    Tokayev flew to Minsk to attend the meeting. The third minister in
    attendance was Belorussian Foreign Minister Sergey Martynov, who
    represented the host country. The foreign affairs ministers of the
    other nine CIS republics passed up the summit for various reasons
    and sent their deputies instead.

    The unprecedented indifference among the ex-Soviet republics to the
    jubilee event is tied to the similarly unprecedented crisis in which
    the CIS finds itself. From an official point of view, the massive
    under-attendance by the ministers appears to be completely logical.

    Until this year, the SMID CIS summits have served as preliminaries for
    the main event: the presidential forum. The ministers usually gather a
    day early to put the finishing touches on documents to be presented to
    the leaders of the CIS countries for signatures the next day. However,
    this time the schedule was different: the summit of presidents,
    which had originally been scheduled for today, was cancelled. This
    news put a damper on interest in the meeting of the ministers.

    The majority of the foreign affairs ministers of the Commonwealth
    countries confirmed to Kommersant that no important questions were
    on the agenda for the meeting in Minsk and that they preferred to
    concentrate on their own affairs. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's
    press service told Kommersant that Foreign Affairs Minister Boris
    Tarasyuk did not go to Minsk because he was overwhelmed with work
    at home. "You take a look at what's going on in our country," said
    Foreign Affairs Ministry press secretary Andrey Deshchitsa by way of
    explanation. Moldovan Foreign Affairs Minister Andrey Stratan said
    that he is attending important meetings in Kishinev and declined to
    discuss the Minsk meeting. The foreign affairs ministers of Armenia
    and Azerbaijan preferred to hold two-sided talks on the question of
    the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

    The Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry believes that the general
    apathy within the Commonwealth may be linked to a lack of a common
    opinion within the organization on the question of reform in the
    CIS countries. "Interest in inter-CIS affairs may be dampened by the
    fact that we have not decisively defined what reform should look like
    within the CIS," said a Kommersant source within the Russian Foreign
    Ministry. It is clear that these differences of opinion are so great
    that they prevented the CIS presidents from meeting in Minsk for the
    previously-scheduled period of time.

    There have also recently been increasingly fierce arguments surrounding
    reforms in the CIS, where the role of chief reformer is claimed by
    both Russia and Kazakhstan. At an unofficial summit of CIS leaders in
    July of this year, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who heads the
    Council of CIS Heads of State, proposed his idea for an overhaul of the
    Commonwealth. In Mr. Nazarbayev's opinion, the CIS should concentrate
    on five areas of cooperation: working out an agreement on migration
    policies, developing unified transport channels, collaboration in
    scientific-educational and in cultural-humanitarian spheres, and
    cooperation in the struggle against trans-border crime. Additionally,
    Kazakhstan has proposed that the CIS should include only those
    countries that are prepared to fully implement the decisions taken by
    the Commonwealth. However, Astana's proposals were met with no overt
    enthusiasm in Moscow. The fact of the matter is that Russia desires
    to play the major role in reforming the CIS and hopes to do so in a
    way that shores up its own elevated position within the organization.

    Thus, when the Kazakh side suggested to those in attendance at the
    summit yesterday that they consider Mr. Nazarbayev's proposal, the
    initiative was met with criticism. "If someone, under the guise of
    reforms, wants to ruin the CIS, then we do not intend to participate
    in the process. Belarus wants no part of the destructive tendencies
    in the Commonwealth and earnestly entreats the other states to follow
    its example," said Mr. Lukashenko. "If we want to go forth to meet
    our enemy, then we should go forward with these so-called reforms.

    And that will be the greatest gift we can give to our foes, who sleep
    and see wealth in the ex-Soviet world."

    Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov supported the
    Belorussian leader, although he was more restrained in his comments.

    "The reforms were conceived not for the sake of reform. Reforms in
    the CIS should not lead to an automatic decrease in the member states
    of the Commonwealth," he concluded.

    The Russian minister also stated that the cancelled summit of
    presidents will take place in November on a date that is still being
    decided. But the question of reforms is not likely to be decided at
    that meeting either. The heads of state of the CIS countries will
    concentrate on discussing topics such as the struggle against illegal
    immigration and money laundering.

    However, the reason for general skepticism in relation to the CIS
    lies not only in disagreements on the question of reform within the
    organization. In essence, the recent events that took place between
    Russia and Georgia have pushed the CIS to the brink of extinction.

    The majority of the ex-Soviet states noted that Russia has
    imposed unprecedented sanctions against a CIS member country. The
    Russian-Georgian standoff is forcing the rest of the Commonwealth
    countries to seriously doubt the organization's capacity for survival,
    as well as its effectiveness.

    The Kremlin's anti-Georgian stance has demonstrated to Russia's
    partners in the CIS the dangers that unfriendly relations with
    Moscow can be fraught with and has forced them to think about who
    may become the next victim of Russian rage. However, the scandal in
    the relations between Moscow and Tbilisi has also demonstrated that
    all of the relations between Moscow and the separate members of the
    CIS are strictly two-sided. Problems are decided only in the Kremlin,
    and meetings and summits play only a decorative role.
Working...
X