CIS SUMMITS: GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS?

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MOSCOW 012711 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/30/2016 TAGS: PREL PGOV ECON PINR BY RS SUBJECT: CIS SUMMITS: GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS? REF: A. MOSCOW 12695 ¶B. MOSCOW 8841 ¶C. MOSCOW 12264 Classified By: Ambassador William J. Burns. Reasons: 1.4 (b, d). ¶1. (C) Summary: After a series of low-impact/low-turnout meetings, CIS Heads of State gathered again in Minsk on November 28. The meeting -- billed as a "working" summit -- will be followed by another, more formal gathering in Astana in December to commemorate the CIS's fifteenth anniversary. From Moscow's perspective, the Minsk meeting was more notable for bilaterals between President Putin and Presidents Voronin and Lukashenko than for any attempt to revive the faltering organization. Growing differences among CIS members and a persistent failure to implement CIS decisions have called into question the group's continuing relevance. Although members have agreed on the need for reform, there is a lack of consensus about the group's direction. No drastic changes in either the format or membership are expected until at least 2008. End Summary. . Low Expectations Summit -------------- ¶2. (C) While President Putin called the CIS summit "productive and businesslike," the most useful work was done on the summit margins or at separate bilateral meetings. In a press briefing following the summit, Putin stressed that he had spoken at the summit table with Georgian President Saakashvili, and had had extended discussions with Lukashenko about outstanding energy issues, including the valuation of gas firm Beltransgaz. Talks with Voronin led to the lifting of the ban on Moldovan wine and meat products (ref A) and a pledge to step up Transnistrian talks. The Moscow Carnegie Center's Nikolay Petrov told us that these were real accomplishments, given the low expectations before the summit. However, on the critical question of CIS reform, the leaders agreed to put off any decision until the foreign ministers provide consensus recommendations by a July deadline. Petrov said that Moscow was pleased with this outcome because it wanted to avoid contentious discussions on the organization's future. . CIS: Broken Tea Cup or Graveyard for Soviet Dreams? -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) Russia's caution in dealing with changes to the CIS status quo was reflected in pre-summit comments by the Director of the MFA's Third CIS Department (Central Asia) �A;Maksim Peshkov. He likened the CIS to a cracked tea cup. It does not produce a clear resonating sound when tapped, he told us, but one can use it forever if it is held gently. If handled roughly, it will break. Others in Moscow compare the CIS to a divorce agreement, a simile first used by then-President of Ukraine Kravchuk and repeated by Putin last year. In this view, the CIS was an artificially created arrangement designed to ease the dissolution of the Soviet Union. With that divorce finalized, the CIS had no useful purpose. For Director of the CIS Institute Vladimir Pomanenko, the CIS is where Soviet legacies are interred. He lamented the "unnecessary" break up of the Union and insisted that the desire to unite had not disappeared completely. Peshkov agreed: "For over seventy years, we were together; we cannot dispense with those ties." . The CIS Atrophies -------------- ¶4. (C) Experts we spoke to argued that the CIS's ill-defined raison d'etre had led to organizational atrophy. Also contributing to organizational weakness were the growing differences among member states. Carnegie's Petrov told us that some of the CIS countries tended to be isolationist, while others were much more outward-looking. The same organization encompasses Georgia and Ukraine as well as Turkmenistan (albeit as an "associate" member). Leonid Vardomskiy, head of the Center of the CIS and the Baltic States at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Economy, claimed that CIS members had already drifted too far apart to be shoehorned into a coherent organization. Russia, despite its "primitively defined" political ambitions, did not really consider the CIS a viable organization, Vardomskiy claimed. The outmoded technologies and economies of many CIS countries reduced economic relations to barter trade in raw materials. The economic disparity among the countries -- Russia and Kazakhstan at the top; Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan bringing up the rear -- made the development of a common economic agenda a virtual impossibility. Russia's main economic interests lay outside the CIS, Vardomskiy said. The disconnect between Russia's interests and those of other CIS states acted as an impediment to Russia's ambitions to lead MOSCOW 00012711 002 OF 003 the CIS. ¶5. (C) Flaws in the organization itself have also crippled its effectiveness. Most CIS observers point to the members' persistent failure to implement the hundreds of CIS agreements as evidence of the group's uselessness. Aleksey Vlasov of Moscow State University (MGU) noted that the CIS's organizational structure remained skeletal and would likely stay that way because of the lack of a credible "integration" philosophy. Andrey Ryabov of the Institute for World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) suggested that some of the fault for the CIS's dysfunctional nature can be laid at the feet of Russia, which was "ill-equipped to deal with multilateral organizations." "Russia made efforts but always failed," he said. . Russia Tries to Show Leadership -------------- ¶6. (C) Given such clear-cut failures, why then does Russia remain invested in the CIS? FM Lavrov was quick last year to try to explain away Putin's comment that the CIS was merely a divorce decree, arguing that a commonality of interests still tied the former republics together. Aleksey Bogaturov of Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) suggested that the CIS remained relevant -- at least from the Russian point of view -- because it continued to provide a stage for Moscow's ambitions. Aleksandr Fadeyev of the CIS Institute echoed Bogaturov, arguing that Russia's continued struggle for regional leadership was the only reason why the CIS had been spared "liquidation." . One Summit to Many? -------------- ¶7. (C) With many former Soviet republics celebrating their 15th year of independence this fall, the 15th "jubilee" CIS summit was scheduled for October 16-17 in Minsk. However, Putin and Nazarbayev intervened at the last minute to substitute a CIS Council of Foreign Affairs Ministers meeting (CFM) for the summit, which was postponed to November. In the end, only a few ministers attended the CFM (Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan). The November 28 Summit in Minsk will be followed by yet another summit -- in Astana -- to mark the 15th anniversary of the creation of the CIS. The experts we spoke to before the Minsk summit unanimously agreed that not much would be decided at either gathering. Events in Minsk seemed to bear them out. Other than putting off any decision on CIS reform until next year, the members could only agree on the appointment of the head of the CIS Anti-Terrorist Center and on a joint statement on fighting illegal immigration. The group was unable to come to a consensus on demarcating borders between CIS states. . Putin, Nazarbayev and Lukashenko -------------- ¶8. (C) The "dueling" summits in Minsk and Astana are only one reflection of the tensions within the organization. Many Moscow experts believed that Putin will need to play a balancing role between Nazarbayev and Lukashenko. According to Fadeyev of the CIS Institute, Lukashenko had no patience for Kazakh reform proposals (that "Asian stuff") that sought to reduce the areas the CIS acted in while increasing the possibilities that decisions would be implemented. In Fadeyev's view, Belarus did not believe that Kazakhstan should exert influence over CIS processes. MGU's Vlasov told us after the Minsk summit that the Kazakh President's proposals were meant to burnish his credentials as a statesman and had little chance of success because of the growing differences in interests among members. . Beyond the CIS, So Many Groups: SES, EURASEC, BSEC and SCO -------------- -------------- ¶9. (C) Several of our interlocutors agreed that, as with the EU, Russia worked better bilaterally than through the CIS. Reviewing the alphabet soup of regional economic organizations Moscow sought to lead, experts questioned their effectiveness or relevance in spurring economic cooperation, much less integration. The Separate Economic Space (SES: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan) existed only on paper. Experts dismissed it as "non-functional" without Ukraine's participation. Varying levels of economic development impeded efforts by the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEc: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) to cooperate effectively, while persistent economic disputes between Russia and Belarus, and Russia and Kazakhstan also got in the way (reftel A). Russia and several CIS countries also belong to the Black Sea Economic Cooperation organization (BSEC: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkey, MOSCOW 00012711 003 OF 003 Ukraine and Serbia). Despite efforts by Russia to invigorate this organization, observers also questioned its relevance (reftel B). ¶10. (C) In the view of Moscow experts, including Mikhail Titarenko, Director of the Far Eastern Institute the one organization that Russia did not lead alone -- the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO: Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) -- had the greatest potential in both the economic and security fields. He claimed that a Chinese-led SCO had much more capacity to further economic integration than did the CIS. IMEMO's Andrey Ryabov argued that the SCO, although at a rudimentary stage, could develop into a "NATO 2" given China's political ambitions and economic power. China will continue to strengthen the SCO's influence in the region as it reached for regional political and economic hegemony, Ryabov warned. Comment -------------- ¶11. (C) The CIS is suffering from chronic malaise -- lack of strong direction and of a well-defined agenda -- and corrosive discontent among its member countries. However, even if members like Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova left the organization, it is clear to most observers that without substantial reforms, the CIS will become even less relevant. We expect the CIS will limp along -- at least until the 2008 leadership change in Russia -- because Moscow continues to view the organization as an emblem of Russian leadership in the post-Soviet space. BURNS