Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arrived in the Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan yesterday for a summit of former Soviet states overshadowed by political chaos in Ukraine and the Russia-Georgia war.
Medvedev was to first hold talks with Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, whose nation’s ties with Moscow have been strained with the Kremlin taking it to task in a note for an “alarming rise in nationalist feeling” against Russia and its language.
The two were later to be joined by the presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
That is a less-than-full turnout for a meeting today of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which rose from the ashes of the Soviet Union.
Ahead of a pre-summit dinner yesterday, CIS foreign ministers held talks due to touch on Georgia’s withdrawal from the group after August’s war with Russia.
Medvedev has since called Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili a “political corpse.”
The conflict over Georgia’s two Russian-backed rebel regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia looks set dominate the summit, particularly since Medvedev has indicated the pretext for August’s military assault on Georgia — the defense of Russian citizens there — could be used again.
Commenting on Georgia’s withdrawal from the CIS, announced by Saakashvili before a crowd on Aug. 12, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters: “It’s a loss for the Georgian people. That’s clear to them.”
Also absent were the heads of two other states that have strained relations with Moscow.
Ukraine, which plunged into political chaos with the dissolution of its parliament on Wednesday, and energy-rich Azerbaijan, whose oil exports were disrupted by the August war, gave the meeting a miss.
The official agenda for the summit focuses on economic cooperation, combating illegal migration and terrorism.
But skeptics have long seen CIS meetings as a valve for letting off pressure among states, as seen in occasionally heated exchanges at CIS news conferences.
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