CIS Has Demonstrated Its Capability To Face New Challenges

The active participation of the CIS states in the global anti-terrorist campaign has been an eloquent evidence to the CIS capability to give appropriate response to the changing international situation, said Russian Foreign minister Igor Ivanov, while opening a session of the CIS Foreign Ministers' Council in Moscow on Thursday. According to him, the CIS was the first international structure in Euro-Asia that started to form an anti-terrorist centre long before the September 11 terrorist assault. "The military operation in Afghanistan has forced many world politicians to re-assess the role of cooperation mechanisms within the CIS," Ivanov said. According to him, this is the first step in the long fighting against international terrorism. It is difficult, the Russian Foreign Minister thinks, to win terrorism by military force alone. The combat against terrorism, he stressed, must evolute into a global system of countering new threats and challenges. It is crucial, Ivanov said, that the CIS should play a worthy role in the new system of international relations, which is currently in the making. Ivanov emphasized that the CIS countries must have a single approach to the fighting against international terrorism, which must be based on international law, with the UN playing the coordinating role. "We know that terrorism basically emerges in the zones of conflicts and instability," he said. According to the minister, the efficiency of counter-terrorist measures mostly depends on successful aversion and settlement of regional conflicts, and the CIS countries have big opportunities for cooperation in this sphere. The Foreign Minister also pointed out that the current session of the CIS Foreign ministers was timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Commonwealth.