The Commonwealth of Independent States summit November 28 in Minsk turned out to be a public relations headache for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Not only did the participants fail to agree on any significant multilateral initiative, but the summit itself was sullied by a media scandal.
Putin attempted to put a positive spin on events, telling journalists that the meeting was "productive and business-like." Other leaders weren't so generous in their assessments. Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev hinted that the CIS was caught up in an infinite loop of discussions in which ideas were proposed and never acted on. He noted that the same concepts seem to be debated at every CIS gathering. "From Kazan we moved to Moscow, from Moscow to Minsk, and now we are set to move discussions again, to Dushanbe," Nazarbayev said.
Prior to the start of the Minsk summit, Nazarbayev aired an idea of transforming the CIS into a grouping more along the lines of the European Union (EU). He also expressed a desire for the Minsk summiteers to discuss migration, transport and communication, instead of sticking to the usual agenda items: economic cooperation and anti-terrorism. Russian officials, including MP Konstantin Zatulin, downplayed Nazarbayev's CIS proposal, indicating that it wasn't practical.
The Minsk gathering will likely be remembered for action taken by the summit's Belarussian hosts to restrict media coverage. According to the RIA Novosti news agency, authorities barred three Russian journalists from entering the summit venue because they had written articles that had disparaged Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko's regime. Western officials have depicted Belarus as Europe's last dictatorship.
"One of the reasons for denying access was the offense to the Belarussian head of state and the systematic offense to Belarus," said presidential aide Pavel Lekhky. Two of the banned journalists were affiliated with the tabloid newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets and the other worked for the business daily Kommersant.
The Belarussian government's action prompted a boycott of the event by other Russian journalists. Lekhky later claimed that many Russian journalists did not attend the post-summit news conference because Putin decided not to make himself available for questions. Putin later quoted Lukashenko as telling him that the incident had been a "misunderstanding a procedural mistake."
While Putin may well want to quickly forget the whole Minsk event, the summit was perhaps more productive for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. On November 29, the Georgian president said that on the summit's sidelines he struck a deal in principle with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, on natural gas supplies this winter, the website Civil Georgia reported. In connection with a variety of political disputes involving Moscow and Tbilisi, the Russian energy giant Gazprom imposed a massive price hike for gas exports to Georgia. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Georgian leaders have been scrambling since the Gazprom announcement to secure alternative sources of gas.
Azerbaijan had seemed reluctant to get caught in the middle of the Georgian-Russian dispute, but Saakashvili indicated that Aliyev's administration had made up its mind to assist Tbilisi. "I think this winter will become a historic example of brotherly relations between Azerbaijan and Georgia," Civil Georgia quoted Saakashvili as saying. A Georgian government delegation, headed by Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli, was scheduled to make a one-day trip to Baku on November 30 to finalize energy supply arrangements.
Saakashvili made little progress in easing Georgia's tense relations with Russia. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. He had sought a private meeting with Putin, but had to settle for a brief encounter during the summit. In reflecting on the conversation, Saakashvili sounded upbeat. "We had a useful conversation," he said in comments aired by Georgian television. "We should have a constant dialogue with Russia."
Commenting on the Saakashvili-Putin encounter, Kazakhstani President Nazarbayev said the two "had a good exchange of views in our presence."
Putin, however, was far from sanguine when discussing his dialogue with Saakashvili. "I spoke with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, and had a more detailed conversation with the Moldovan leader [President Vladimir Voronin]," RIA Novosti quoted Putin as saying.
To emphasize the Kremlin's profound hostility toward Georgia, Russian officials announced that they were lifting an import ban on Moldovan wine and meat products, while keeping a similar embargo against Georgian commodities in place. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Editor's note:
Sergei Blagov is a Moscow-based specialist in CIS political affairs.
