On 21 December 1991, the leaders of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan signed the Alma-Ata Protocol which fixed the purposes of the creation and principles of the CIS’ activities. The former head of the press service of the President of Azerbaijan, a political analyst Rasim Agayev speaks about the process and conditions of the CIS creation.
‘’In Baku, we were making a decision whether to go to Alma-Ata or not on a high level. This happened immediately after the Belovezha Accords, and the decision to participate in the Almaty meeting and adoption of the declaration were hard for the then leaders of Azerbaijan, due to the acute political confrontation with those who openly and defiantly opposed to this. The main argument which then was provided by our political opponents, was that everything had been over to Russia, the Soviet Union had collapsed and Russia would collapse any day, so we needed to look for allies particularly in Turkey and Europe,’’ Rasim Agayev said.
‘’It happened so, that now there is a strong rapporoachment between Turkey and Russia. Russia has withstood no matter what. We know, that it has not been easy. We were able to take part in the creation of CIS, to contribute to its creation, and this proves the vision of our then leaders. In 1993, immediately after his return to Baku, our leader Heydar Aliyev decided to sign the Alma-Ata Principle on participation in the CIS. This issue was immediately resolved. The future of the CIS depends on the will of the members of the Commonwealth, but the Russian factor gains the main importance. If Russia remains, becomes stronger, is able to gain energy and moves on further, the CIS will remain. We have seen it on the example of the Soviet Union - if the then Russian leadership had showed other merits, may be, we would have preserved a much more efficient form of the cooperation,’’ the analyst believes.
According to him, the CIS has proven its productivity and ability to survive in the very difficult political circumstances. "We are optimistic about the future. Now everyone agrees that the international relations reformatted in a broader international scale, only confirm the correctness of those who once supported the creation of the CIS. Now we have a ready-made mechanism that can justify the hopes of those who fought for the preservation of the Commonwealth under any circumstances, because it helps to consolidate the Eurasian model and Eurasian space, and this is a guarantee of security and development.’’
