Belarus wants Georgia back in CIS

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Published time: October 04, 2012 13:43
Edited time: October 04, 2012 17:47

President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko.(AFP Photo / Viktor Drachev)

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Belarus, CIS, Election, Georgia, Lukashenko, Opposition, Politics, Saakashvili

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko will attempt to initiate Georgia’s re-accession to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which unites former Soviet republics.

Next year’s CIS summit will most likely convene in Minsk. In that case, according to Lukashenko, he will “act in every possible way” to initiate Georgia’s return to the regional organization.

“We shouldn’t lose Georgia,” he added in an interview with the Mir Interstate TV and Radio Company.

The statement comes shortly after the parliamentary vote in Georgia, in which President Mikhail Saakashvili’s party lost to the opposition coalition led by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili after nine years in power.

However, the new Georgian authorities are not considering the republic’s return to the CIS.

"This issue is not on the agenda of the new Georgian administration," Ivanishvili’s advisor Georgy Khukhashvili told Interfax.

The opposition billionaire will now form a new government and is likely to become Georgia’s new prime minister, providing his return to Georgian citizenship is approved. His international priorities are similar to Saakashvili’s and include NATO and EU integration.

At the same time, Ivanishvili pledged to normalize relations between Tbilisi and Moscow. The tycoon said he would try to convince the Kremlin that Georgia’s NATO membership poses no threat to Russia.

Georgia and Russia have not been on good terms ever since pro-Western Saakashvili swept to power as a result of the so-called Rose Revolution in 2003. After he led his country to a brief war with Russia in August 2008, diplomatic ties between the two states were cut.

In 2009, Tbilisi officially quit the CIS, which was formed after the collapse of the USSR. Currently, the regional organization unites 11 former Soviet republics: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine.

Comments (16)

Cossack (unregistered) 06.10.2012 13:51

Except for the Cossack brotherhood who conquered the empire for Moscow which in the end gave it all away in one year, Russia has only had a few of visionary leaders up till now one Bolshevik, one Czarina and one Czar.

Eg. the Balkan Slavs should have been consolidated in the past and today be part of the CIS economic union and hence Russia would have access to the Mediterranean.

In the nineteenth century there was a struggle between the Pan Slavists and the non Pan Slavists. The first lead by Belinsky wanted Russia to project its power westerward and unite the Southern Slavs into one confederacy. We can see today the price Russia has payed for not following his sage advice....

Lu kashenko for Emperor.... :)

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gerd (unregistered) 05.10.2012 13:29

This is a good Idea and may bring peace to the region ,.Important side effect will be to keep the west/Nato out which have nothing to do there.The Trojan horse was the old leader not the people of Georgia.

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Tomasz 05.10.2012 06:04

@Yeah --- Thank you for sending me the link about the protests in Poland. Thank you for supporting them!! I bet you're too stupid to realize that those protestors support the intelligent party called PiS in Poland which believes (and knows) that Russia was behind the airplane crash of President Kaczynski in 2010 in Smolensk. So thank you for agreeing with them and believing there should be better investigations. :)

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