Ashgabat Breaks Away from CIS

zaman.com ^ | August 28, 2005 | Mirza Cetinkaya

[Lukasz]

Another sign indicating that the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), founded after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is disintegrating emerged in the Commonwealth summit held at Kazan.

Turkmenistan is preparing to leave the 15 year old CIS by changing its status. Georgian President Mihail Saakashvili revealed that in the last hours of the summit, Turkmenistan government communicated its request for a change in its CIS permanent membership status. In the case that Turkmenistan breaks away from the CIS, it will be the first time since the three Baltic republics that a Central Asian Soviet will have obtained full independence.

Turkmenistan President Saparmurat Niyazov addressed a letter to the CIS term president Russian Leader, Vladimir Putin, through its representative Aganiyaz Akiyev, requesting a change in its country’s membership status in the CIS due to his country’s “status of permanent neutrality.” The request was unanimously accepted by the participants of the Kazan summit. Russian Foreign President Sergey Lavrov assessing the development indicated Turkmenistan’s status in the CIS was thereby practically reduced to nil. Niyazov was the only CIS leader, who did not attend the Kazan summit. Ashgabat preserves a certain distance with the CIS and other regional organizations, accusing them of reducing everything to political terms. Turkmenistan refuses to join any organization because of its “status of permanent neutrality” which was accepted by the United Nations General Assembly in 12 December 1995.

The steps expected from “velvet revolutionaries” come from Turkmenistan

Niyazov announced that relations with the CIS would continue. Turkmenistan possesses the world’s richest natural gas reserves and has a population of 5 million. Turkmenistan annually exports around 5 million cubic meters of natural gas to Iran through pipelines which are not from the Soviet era, in addition to its exports to Russia and Ukraine

As the revolutionary countries are expected to leave the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which Russian President Putin claimed was established in order to mellow the separation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) for the society, it is interesting that Turkmenistan is the first to want to leave. Some CIS countries led by Georgia and Ukraine, the countries that had the velvet revolutions, want to participate in GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova) and other attempts including the countries in Baltic Sea-Black Sea-Casbian Sea basins. The preparations in this frame are expected to become concrete with a Summit in Kiev. Georgia Leader Mikhail Saakashvili made an explanation yesterday that his country does not plan to separate from the CIS, as the organization is an important platform for discussing the problems of the countries in the region. Ukranian Leader, who became the president with the orange revolution, Victor Yuschenko, also made a similar explanation yesterday.

Besides the summit in Tatarstan’s capital Kazan, the leaders of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine came together to establish common economic areas. However Ukrainian leader Yuschenko announced that his country is not ready for a structure like this yet and withdrew from the meeting. Yuschenko said that the Ukraine Parliament will not accept the agreements on new constructions. The observers define the real target of the Kiev administration as to develop its relations with the European Union (EU).

Russian Leader Putin, on the other side, noted after a meeting with his colleagues yesterday that they will sign 29 agreements with Kazakhstan and Belarus in order to establish a common economic area by the end of this year. According to Putin 15 new documents will be signed in this frame by March 2006. It is reported that Russia tried to establish common economic areas more than the CIS recently; however the change of regime in Ukraine is an important obstacle for that.

Aliyev-Kocarien Discuss Karabag

The leaders of the CIS countries Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Turkmenistan could not agree on reforms to activate the foundation more during the meeting they participated. The leaders want to develop the relations in economic and social areas. They reached a consensus to show the Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev as the candidate for The Organization of Security and Cooperation for Europe (OSCE) presidency. The 41st summit of the CIS will be held in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, in 2006.

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia President Robert Kocarian, both of whom participated in the summit in Kazan, came together yesterday and discussed the Karabag conflict. The details of the meeting, which lasted two hours and defined as positive, were not revealed. Co-presidents of OSCE Minsk Group were also present in the second part of the meeting.