Russia’s Vice Prime Minister and Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov didn’t appear discouraged that the encounter in Baku failed to enjoy great attendance.
Photo: Ilya Pitalev
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CIS Short of Defense Ministers
Russia’s Vice Prime Minister and Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov chaired in Baku (Azerbaijan) yesterday the 50th sitting of defense ministers of CIS member states. The official achievement of the anniversary summit was adopting the military coordination program of CIS through to 2010. The military doctrine, however, seems rather conditional, as defense ministers of Georgia, Armenia, Moldova and Turkmenistan ignored the event and the future of CIS is vague. Regardless, Ivanov didn’t appear discouraged and even called on his colleagues to oppose an external threat on soil of the former Soviet Union from the Dnestr Region to the Caspian Sea.
Unlike the previous meetings of CIS defense ministers, that summit obviously failed to gather great attendance, lacking the ministers of Georgia, Armenia, Moldova and Turkmenistan. Members of regional GUAM bloc that is developing as an alternative to CIS, Georgia and Moldova, preferred to neglect the anniversary meeting in Baku. Turkmenistan adopted an attitude of just a nominal member of CIS long ago and Armenia missed the event for reasons of the host country, Azerbaijan.
Moreover, the possible role of Azerbaijan in the CIS defense doctrine looks at least strange, as the latter isn’t engaged in the United Air Defense System, always preferring to guard the border with no help of the northern neighbors and generally sticking to the NATO standards in the military buildup.
Besides, the attendance of Ukrainian Defense Minister Anatoly Gritsenko was apparently conditional. Gritsenko vowed before the summit he would attend only as an observer with no intention to seal any joint document, as “Ukraine is interested only in the Euro-Atlantic structures and it is beyond the framework of CIS defense policy.”
Another interesting point is that five of eight CIS member states in Baku (Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tadjikistan) are members of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and Belarus manifests acute interest in that bloc. Therefore, in substance, the summit in Baku appeared rather a visiting meeting of that organization.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of June 01, 2006
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