The results of an informal summit in the CIS in Kyiv

Arkady Dubnov , Kiev: an informal CIS summit in Kiev, despite the certain doubts yesterday, ended with Russian-Ukrainian triumph. President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma was elected chairman of the Council of Heads of State of the CIS, thus, last year’s initiative of Russian President Putin, at first met with hosts by some presidents, for example, Belarusian, was today supported by the heads of all 12 delegations of the Commonwealth. This decision, however, turned out to be the only formal document signed during the Kyiv meeting.

However, the results of a two -hour, apparently difficult for both leaders of the meeting of the presidents of Russia and Georgia, were no less important, first of all. Their main result was the following: Eduard Shevardnadze could not convince Vladimir Putin to cancel the movement of electric trains between Sukhumi and Sochi, which, according to Shevardnadze, is not entirely legitimate. Putin suggested linking this issue with the solution to the problem of returning refugees to Georgia and also stated that there was still no normal border between Russia and Georgia on the Abkhazian site, and from Abkhazia, one way or another, merchants to the Sochi bazaar came, it is better for them to do this now legal. Putin also rejected Tbilisi's reproaches that Russian passports are issued everywhere in Abkhazia. This is not passporting, but the acceptance of applications for joining Russian citizenship and we, under the new Russian law on citizenship, cannot refuse this to those who wish, said Putin. In addition, he recalled, since the beginning of the 90s about a million Georgians left for Russia and 650 thousand received Russian citizenship-"So why should the Abkhazam refuse this?" In the same way, it was tough enough, Putin repeated the position of Moscow about the extension of the CIS mandate in the Georgian -Abkhaz conflict zone: if Georgia insists on the conclusion of the peacekeepers, they will be withdrawn, but the responsibility for this will no longer be on us, ”Putin said and added, but in general, the balance of forces existing there should be maintained.

And, finally, the problem of creating a free trade zone in the CIS, in the braking of which they reproaches Russia, was also clearly indicated at the Kiev summit. Moscow repeated its position on the impossibility of immediately abandoning taxes in the country of goods, which is the main condition for creating a free trade zone, since Russia is the main exporter in the CIS of energy resources, and only in trade with Ukraine would the Russian treasury of $ 650 million. Nevertheless, Putin agreed that decisions on the mild entry of Russia in the free trade zone and drawing up a list of tax taxed in the country-consumer of goods would be prepared for the next CIS summit in Yalta in September this year.