President Vladimir Putin used a Commonwealth of Independent States summit in Minsk on Tuesday to lift the ban on wine and meat imports from Moldova.
"We agreed on the resumption of shipments of meat and wine from Moldova to Russia," he said late Tuesday after talks with Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, Interfax reported.
Putin also announced that Gazprom would form a 50-50 joint venture with Belarussian state gas monopoly Beltransgaz. In televised remarks, Putin said the details of the deal would be worked out by the end of the year.
No further information on the deal was made available late Tuesday.
Earlier this month, Gazprom indicated that it might charge Belarus less than $200 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas -- the price it is currently demanding -- in exchange for more gas pipeline assets.
Russia suspended imports of wine from Moldova and Georgia last March, citing health concerns. Both Voronin and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili complained that the ban had more to do with their aspirations to escape Moscow's influence and move closer to the West.
The wine ban took a heavy toll on the economies of both countries. Business Analytica, an industry consultancy, said that in 2005, Georgian and Moldovan wines accounted for some 44 percent of all in-store wine sales in Russia.
Saakashvili also asked the Kremlin for a face-to-face meeting with Putin in Minsk, but was turned down.
The lifting of the Moldovan wine ban was the highlight of the 15th annual CIS summit, which produced few other positive results. Importantly, the 12 member states failed to agree on how to reform the organization, which is increasingly viewed as obsolete.
"In Kazan, we postponed [the implementation of reforms] until Moscow, and in Moscow until Minsk," Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said, RIA-Novosti reported. "Now, we are postponing everything until Dushanbe," he said, apparently referring to the next CIS summit. A CIS spokeswoman said, however, that the location of the next summit had yet to be decided.
The organization's waning relevance was underscored by the coverage on Russian state television of a squabble that ensued when two leading Russian newspapers were denied access to the event for "unfavorable coverage" of Belarus.
Kommersant and Moskovsky Komsomolets were barred from the summit because they had published "articles and photographs insulting to the head of the Belarussian state," Pavel Legkiy, a spokesman for Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, told Interfax.
Despite the incident, which stole the spotlight in Minsk, analysts said Tuesday that CIS summits remained an important forum where leaders can meet in person.
In Minsk, Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and Azeri President Ilkham Aliyev discussed the fate of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh republic. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a bitter, decades-long struggle for the republic, which they both claim.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko met with Uzbek President Islam Karimov to discuss cooperation on energy resources extraction and shipping, the RBC Ukraine news agency reported.
Saakashvili did not get to meet with Putin, however. The Georgian president had hoped to make progress on improving ties between the two countries, he said in televised remarks Monday.
"I don't want to insult Georgia and the friendly Georgian people ... but relations with Georgia are not a priority for us at the moment," Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said in an interview published this week in Germany's Der Spiegel magazine.
Nazarbayev said that while no bilateral meeting was held in Minsk, Putin and Saakashvili had exchanged opinions during the summit. This "gives hope" for the warming of Russia-Georgia relations, Nazarbayev said in televised remarks.
The CIS remains an important platform where heads of state can meet, but otherwise it lacks relevance, said Alexei Makarkin, deputy general director of the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies.
"It lacks a common idea apart from [providing] a civilized divorce," Makarkin said. The CIS was established to ease the transition of its members to independence after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Konstantin Zatulin, general director of the CIS Institute, said the organization would remain a functional political force. "The CIS is first and foremost a political organization," he said.
Zatulin said the CIS would remain active unless Russia were to pull out, which would not be in Moscow's interest. He added that Russia needed to provide incentives to other member states to compensate for coming gas price hikes.
Defense Minister Ivanov reaffirmed the Kremlin's stance that Russia would no longer supply energy to Georgia, Ukraine or other former Soviet republics at discounted prices.
"Russia is not obliged to foot the bill for any foreign state as it has, for example, in Ukraine, covering a $6 billion to $7 billion annual bill," he said.
"We agreed on the resumption of shipments of meat and wine from Moldova to Russia," he said late Tuesday after talks with Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, Interfax reported.
Putin also announced that Gazprom would form a 50-50 joint venture with Belarussian state gas monopoly Beltransgaz. In televised remarks, Putin said the details of the deal would be worked out by the end of the year.
No further information on the deal was made available late Tuesday.
Earlier this month, Gazprom indicated that it might charge Belarus less than $200 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas -- the price it is currently demanding -- in exchange for more gas pipeline assets.
Russia suspended imports of wine from Moldova and Georgia last March, citing health concerns. Both Voronin and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili complained that the ban had more to do with their aspirations to escape Moscow's influence and move closer to the West.
The wine ban took a heavy toll on the economies of both countries. Business Analytica, an industry consultancy, said that in 2005, Georgian and Moldovan wines accounted for some 44 percent of all in-store wine sales in Russia.
Saakashvili also asked the Kremlin for a face-to-face meeting with Putin in Minsk, but was turned down.
The lifting of the Moldovan wine ban was the highlight of the 15th annual CIS summit, which produced few other positive results. Importantly, the 12 member states failed to agree on how to reform the organization, which is increasingly viewed as obsolete.
"In Kazan, we postponed [the implementation of reforms] until Moscow, and in Moscow until Minsk," Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said, RIA-Novosti reported. "Now, we are postponing everything until Dushanbe," he said, apparently referring to the next CIS summit. A CIS spokeswoman said, however, that the location of the next summit had yet to be decided.
The organization's waning relevance was underscored by the coverage on Russian state television of a squabble that ensued when two leading Russian newspapers were denied access to the event for "unfavorable coverage" of Belarus.
Kommersant and Moskovsky Komsomolets were barred from the summit because they had published "articles and photographs insulting to the head of the Belarussian state," Pavel Legkiy, a spokesman for Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, told Interfax.
Despite the incident, which stole the spotlight in Minsk, analysts said Tuesday that CIS summits remained an important forum where leaders can meet in person.
In Minsk, Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and Azeri President Ilkham Aliyev discussed the fate of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh republic. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a bitter, decades-long struggle for the republic, which they both claim.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko met with Uzbek President Islam Karimov to discuss cooperation on energy resources extraction and shipping, the RBC Ukraine news agency reported.
Saakashvili did not get to meet with Putin, however. The Georgian president had hoped to make progress on improving ties between the two countries, he said in televised remarks Monday.
"I don't want to insult Georgia and the friendly Georgian people ... but relations with Georgia are not a priority for us at the moment," Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said in an interview published this week in Germany's Der Spiegel magazine.
Nazarbayev said that while no bilateral meeting was held in Minsk, Putin and Saakashvili had exchanged opinions during the summit. This "gives hope" for the warming of Russia-Georgia relations, Nazarbayev said in televised remarks.
The CIS remains an important platform where heads of state can meet, but otherwise it lacks relevance, said Alexei Makarkin, deputy general director of the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies.
"It lacks a common idea apart from [providing] a civilized divorce," Makarkin said. The CIS was established to ease the transition of its members to independence after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Konstantin Zatulin, general director of the CIS Institute, said the organization would remain a functional political force. "The CIS is first and foremost a political organization," he said.
Zatulin said the CIS would remain active unless Russia were to pull out, which would not be in Moscow's interest. He added that Russia needed to provide incentives to other member states to compensate for coming gas price hikes.
Defense Minister Ivanov reaffirmed the Kremlin's stance that Russia would no longer supply energy to Georgia, Ukraine or other former Soviet republics at discounted prices.
"Russia is not obliged to foot the bill for any foreign state as it has, for example, in Ukraine, covering a $6 billion to $7 billion annual bill," he said.
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