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Georgia Left, Doors Are Open
The CIS summit that opens in Bishkek today will post losses for the first time in its history. Georgia’s withdrawal has been decided and the presidents of Ukraine and Azerbaijan will ignore the event. As to other participants, Moscow will hardly attain the key purpose – no CIS member is willing to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia in addition to Russia.
The CIS member states meet in Bishkek first time after the end of the Caucasus war. Foreign ministers had their get-together yesterday to uphold the request of Tbilisi to pull out of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Georgia’s membership will be officially terminated only in a year after the application, i.e. in August of 2009, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, specifying that “in the recent years, Georgia’s participation in the Commonwealth has been hardly aimed at its consolidation but rather at the erosion of CIS.”
“The withdrawal of Georgia won’t be the cause of winding up,” pledged Sergei Lebedev, chief of the CIS Executive Committee and ex-chief of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service. “The door isn’t closed for Georgia, and if its leadership resolves later to join CIS anew, I think this issue will be decided positively,” the official pointed out.
Also on yesterday, the CIS foreign ministries agreed on terminating activities of CIS peacekeepers in Abkhazia, i.e. Russia’s troops have finally lost the peacekeeping status and are stationed there under the bilateral agreement of Sukhumi and Moscow.
At the same time, Moscow was unable to win from other member states the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Lebedev announced the issue won’t be raised at the summit of CIS presidents and the recognition of Sukhumi and Tskhinvali will be the individual process.
In addition to Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliev and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko won’t attend the Bishkek summit of CIS. The rumors are that Ukraine is willing to pull out of the Commonwealth as well.
Bishkek will host another event straight after the CIS meeting. It will be the summit of Central Asia’s states and the place for Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev hasn’t been reserved for some reason.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 10, 2008
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