By Eugeniy Krishtalev, exclusively to VK
The recent informal summit of the CIS leaders gathered all the Commonwealth presidents at surprisingly short notice. The presidents congratulated Putin on his third presidential term, while the Russian President repeated the basic principles of his new foreign policy.
He stressed that strategic partnership with CIS members will be the top priority of Russia’s foreign policy when he’s in office. Moscow has de facto declared a new stage in the Eurasian Union construction, announced in the President’s pre-election campaign.
Putin said that the main strategic task is the promotion of cultural, inter-regional and economic ties, as the CIS states can’t evolve without each other. Another common task for the states is counteracting new threats.
Political expert Andrei Areshev, who commented on the results of the meeting for ‘VK’, stressed that it is important to remember that the meeting took place at a moment of power transition for Russia. The expert believes that it is quite logical for Russia to place its foreign political priority with the CIS. Areshev believes that global politics will become more and more complex and the significance of the military element in it will increase, therefore to assure inner stability it is vitally important for Russia to keep the situation on its borders stable, especially in the Caucasus and in Central Asia.
The expert said that for now the status quo will be maintained in Russian-Georgian relations, and Russia won’t change its policy towards South Ossetia and Abkhazia. As for Nagorno-Karabakh, Areshev is convinced that Russia will carry on with its efforts to reconcile Azerbaijan and Armenia. However, the positions of the conflicting parties are still incompatible and a certain status quo has already been established in the region. The general state of affairs in this situation is unfavorable for Russia, as it could lead to escalation in any moment, as well as to the increase of the influence of extra-regional players in the situation. Russia will try to keep both sides from ill-considered steps. “However, I don’t expect any sudden breakthrough on this issue,” the expert said.
It is noteworthy that Putin obtained bilateral meetings with both the Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents, so it would seem that Russia’s new President needs time to catch up with the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement process.
Azeri experts also believe that the informal CIS summit sent a message about the future Eurasian Union creation to all the CIS members. Azerbaijani MP Zakhid Orudj told ‘News Azerbaijan’ that Putin is definitely hoping to create some new integration structures in CIS space, but in reality it would be very hard for Russia to do so. According to another MP, Aidyn Mirzazade, Russia won’t be able (and doesn’t want to) revive the USSR: “To recreate the USSR one needs to restore the ideology, and Russia doesn’t want that. And for now Russia doesn’t have the means to govern larger territories,” the expert said. However, he stressed that Azerbaijan’s membership in the CIS is fully compatible with the state’s national interests.
Armenian PM Tigran Sarkisyan, however, in his interview to the ‘Vedomosti’ paper that took place prior to the summit, said that economic integration in the CIS framework is inefficient for his country. He pointed out that such cooperation with the EU is much more interesting for Armenia, as it makes the country evolve and try to live up to European standards.
So it is obvious that it would be hard to construct a united Eurasian Union with its potential members having such different positions. However, Moscow seems to be ready to accept this challenge.
