Russian President Vladimir Putin (second at the left), Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev (left), Uzbek President Islam Karimov (second at the right) and Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov at the Central Asian Cooperation Organization summit
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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The Best Present for Putin Is a New Organization
// The Central Asian Cooperation turns into EuroAsian
The Mutation
Russian President Vladimir Putin met Kazakh, Uzbek, Tajik and Kyrgyz presidents at the Konstantin Palace in St. Petersburg and spent a few hours with them pretending to discuss the problem of the Central Asian Cooperation Organization (CAC). Kommersant correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov was sure, though, that the organization had only one problem – it had no sense in it whatsoever. The presidents proved him right in the end: the CAC was virtually disbanded yesterday to dissolve into just another respected organization, the EuroAsian Economic Community.
Russian President Vladimir Putin flew from Moscow to St. Petersburg with Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov (flying with somebody is not that scary, is it?). They were inseparable since the early morning. First, they had talks at Novo-Ogarevo, then went to see La Bayadère at the Bolshoi Theater. I must admit, to my shame, that I watched neither the balled, nor the talks because I had to hurry up for St. Pete to get ready to the events that were supposed to become the main ones.
These main events were held over until the late night. The negotiations started an hour later than they were scheduled. I saw Kazakh and Uzbek president hastening to take their seats in the hall. Mr. Putin suddenly barred their ways and took them aside off the entrance. Probably, he wanted to begin negotiating in the atmosphere as private as possible, with no witnesses, such as the press.
The presidents talked behind the closed doors for some dozen minutes. Yet, when they entered the hall and finally took their seats, it did not seem that they had just been discussing something more or less important. Mr. Putin offered Mr. Rakhmonov to give an opening speech.
The suggestion was no surprise was Mr. Rakhmonov, as you would think if you had seen papers in front of him. But judging by the way Emomali Rakhmonov spoke, you would also have think that any other at the summit could have taken the floor instead to become the same success. Mr. Rakhmonov is concerned about the creation of an intergovernmental body to fight the AIDS, and the forming of the Central Asian market. Steps have already been taken to set up concessions of the water energy, food and transportation consortium of the CAC. I can note that these are the words the leaders of the CAC utter at every summit of the organization not taking the trouble to think of some new.
After an hour and a half of talks, Tajik president read out a suggestion at the press conference that confirmed all the surmises about the Central Asian Cooperation Organization. “…considering the mutuality of the interests of the CAC and the EurAsEC and supporting the bid of Uzbekistan to enter the EurAsEC, we order to prepare all legal documents to establish the united organization, the CAC-EurAsEC,” Emomali Rakhmonov mumbled along.
All the leaders of the organization said their last goodbyes for the deceased CAC. Uzbek president Islam Karimov confessed that now that the decision was taken, he had more confidence in the future. Vladimir Putin told the press that he had enlisted the support of one more member of the EurAsEC, Belarus by phone (Alexander Lukashenko personally). Afterwards, Mr. Putin added that this decision was the best gift for his birthday.
Now I can imagine how fed up everyone was with that CAC.
Andrey Kolesnikov
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 07, 2005
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