Moscow irritated some members ignoring CIS summit

During its October 9 session Valery Seleznev from the Russian Liberal-Democratic Party, popularly known as the Zhirinovsky Party, drew the attention of the Russian Duma to the fact that some leaders of CIS countries had ignored the recent Kishinev summit.

The Presidents of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan did not show up at the summit, inspiring some commentators to write about the “death of the Commonwealth.” Seleznev stated that such a demarche of central Asian leaders is a serious signal to Russia.

Seleznev said that the West is putting considerable financial resources into Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. Belarus is moving very fast towards the EU, and though Armenia and Azerbaijan stick with Russia because they expect Moscow to facilitate the solution of the Karabakh conflict they still explore the Western direction as well. Georgia has left the CIS, Ukraine is thinking of doing the same, so according to Seleznev the CIS is in a reanimation chamber.