CIS Summit: Moscow Shows Its Hand

These are just a few issues that will be discussed  on a bilateral level. Almost all  leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States  requested a personal meeting with President Vladimir Putin.

The agenda of the CIS summit is rather trivial.  It is basically divided into two parts:  exchanging opinions on major international problems, discussing possible ways of improvement of CIS state structures. As far as the second part of the agenda is concerned,  it is all about the state of things with the Commonwealth itself. It has been more than ten years, since it was set up, but now it is experiencing a strong decline. The integration within the CIS is growing, but the commodity circulation is decreasing. The countries of the Commonwealth are basically peculiar for their non-visa entries (except for Georgia) and privilege prices on Russian energy carriers.

The meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze is an intrigue of the summit.  There has been a lot of controversy between Russia and Georgia recently, so the media’s attention was presumably attracted to this issue. Putin and Shevardnadze discussed the situation in the Pankisi Gorge of Georgia. The presidents agreed on the military cooperation and on the delivery of the terrorists that were detained in Georgia.

In the words from the Russian president, Russia and Georgia decided that they both had to develop their collaboration between the border services. Vladimir Putin said that both Russian and Georgian border guards might soon patrol the state border together.

Commenting on the meeting with the Georgian president, Vladimir Putin stated that Eduard Shevardnadze understood Russia’s position. The Russian president set out his hope that there were certain positive changes in the relations between Russia and Georgia. Putin also declared that everything, on which Russia and Georgia agreed upon, would be implemented.

Another intriguing aspect of the summit is the meeting between Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko, the President of Belarus. Lukashenko has not been really kind to Moscow lately either. It goes without saying that the presidents will spend a lot of time, talking about the problems of the Unified State.

Actually, there has never been a political opposition between  Russia and Belarus. The problem is actually about several politicians that used the relations between Russia and Belarus for settling their issues. There has been six contracts on the establishment of the Unified Sate prepared. But 90% of their contents is very good  for a bin, basically. Putin has virtually acknowledged that. What seems more surprising, Belarussian President Lukashenko eventually announced that he was willing to work on the base of the old variant of the contract – the political integration with the preservation of sovereignty. This is comparable to fried ice, really.

On the photo: Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko

Dmitry Chirkin
PRAVDA.Ru