With Commonwealth of Independent States heads arriving in Kyiv for an informal summit, the Ukrainian capital is going to turn into “the CIS Mecca” for two days. There seem to have been difficulties in the preparation of this meeting of ex-Soviet republics’ leaders. Until yesterday, very few of Ukraine’s official representatives could give a clear picture of the summit’s program. The impression was that cordoning off the streets to give way to foreign guests’ cavalcades was the only known “measure” to be taken in Kyiv during the hot days. Nobody could even say exactly how many presidents will eventually come to Ukraine.
The first head of a “near abroad” state, Russian president Vladimir Putin, arrived by plane in Kyiv yesterday. Latter-day CIS summits have been usually preceded by the meetings of the Ukrainian and Russia presidents. This time, Mr. Putin’s two-day routine visit to this country was timed with the opening of the Year of Russia in Ukraine. Yesterday the National Ukrayina Palace hosted a formal ceremony followed by a performance of Russian artists. The agenda of today includes signing a number of bilateral documents, visiting Taras Shevchenko National University, and negotiations proper. The two presidents are expected to pay considerable attention to economic matters, with special emphasis put on cooperation in the energy sector (including the implementation of gas-transit consortium plans). It is not ruled out that they will also broach the problem of a treaty on delimiting the land segment of the Ukrainian-Russian border. Last Friday, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry State Secretary Yury Serheyev even supposed that the document would be signed today. The presidents are also unlikely to sidetrack foreign policy issues. According to some information, the Kremlin guest will be sharing his experience as to how Ukraine can be removed from the FATF blacklist. The Russian mass media view Mr. Putin’s visit to Kyiv in a more “simplified” way: Mr. Putin will be discussing candidatures of Leonid Kuchma’s likely successors.
CIS leaders’ personal airplanes will begin landing in Kyiv at about 11 a.m. The main items on the summit’s agenda are planned for Wednesday. On the same day, Leonid Kuchma and Vladimir Putin are to sum up the summit’s results. The principal “line in the plot” is electing Ukraine for CIS chairmanship. Paradoxically enough, our country cannot be considered a full-fledged member of this organization because it never signed its charter. Yet, this does not preclude Kyiv from advancing initiatives of its own or making remarks about the performance of this organization. The Ukrainian delegation intends to insist on establishing a CIS-wide free trade zone. It is Russia that has thus far been slowing down this process.
It looks like the summit will face the problems that cropped up last week. As is known, it was first planned to hold the meet in the mountains of Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, but it was later decided to relocate it to Kyiv. There were a lot of conjectures about this. Some supposed that the region was just unprepared to receive such a large number of VIP guests. Others claimed that some leaders (for example, the president of Azerbaijan) could not stand the mountainous climate. Still others believed that the Ukrainian government was afraid of the excesses that might be caused by the likely protest actions by oppositional parties. Incidentally, about 120 representatives of various parties picketed Ukrayina Palace yesterday.
However, there seems to be no end to summit problems: out of the 11 presidents, only seven are coming to Kyiv. President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan is physically unable to arrive because he is now visiting Spain (from Monday till Wednesday). Turkmenistan’s leader Saparmurat Niyazov is not coming by what looks like a deep-seated tradition. As these lines were being written, it was not clear what kept President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan from visiting Kyiv — the Kazakh delegation is to be led by Foreign Minister Kasimdzhormart Tokayev. Kyrghyzstan’s President Askar Akayev, now busy preparing a referendum over Constitutional amendments, is also going to ignore the summit. This means a third of the presidents will not take part in the summit...
