This almost looks like the newly strengthened alliance under Russia and China is somehow planning to use the UN which they are trying to fortify as a means to counteract NATO. These countries including many others have been trying to restructure or toughen the UN but I did not realize that this endeavor also was to build a competitive alternative for NATO.
-Am
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said he and the leaders of Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan discussed regional security and agreed to intensify military contacts, increasing the Collective Security Treaty's rapid reaction forces.
Nazarbayev said they also agreed on a mechanism for participation in international UN-led peacekeeping efforts. He said it was "a new area of cooperation," but did not give details. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/06/21/015.html
The second point of disagreement was over NATO military interference in Iraq. France categorically rejected this and the French president confirmed that any intervention by NATO in Iraq would result in great dangers, including the threat of a face-off between the Christian West and the Islamic world. The Russian president echoed France’s view, saying that it was important for the UN rather than NATO to take over in Iraq.http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=47134&d=21&m=6&y=2004
'Not Just Talk' for Putin in Astana
Monday, June 21, 2004. Page 4.
The Associated Press
Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP
Putin listening to a question during a meeting with journalists Thursday in Tashkent.
ASTANA, Kazakhstan -- President Vladimir Putin and leaders of several other former Soviet republics on Friday signed deals to step up economic ties and agreed to expand military cooperation.
"We are creating real instruments of integration. It's not just talk," Putin said after back-to-back summits in Astana of the Russia-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization and Eurasian Economic Community.
The meetings wrapped up a week of intensive diplomacy in strategic Central Asia. On Thursday, the leaders of China, Russia and four Central Asian nations met in Tashkent to raise the clout of their security grouping, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said he and the leaders of Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan discussed regional security and agreed to intensify military contacts, increasing the Collective Security Treaty's rapid reaction forces.
Nazarbayev said they also agreed on a mechanism for participation in international UN-led peacekeeping efforts. He said it was "a new area of cooperation," but did not give details.
The leaders of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan also signed accords on adopting unified laws, circulation of securities and regulating banking activity among the Eurasian Economic Community.
Tajik leader Emomali Rakhmonov complained economic integration efforts have so far not provided tangible results.
Putin said the main obstacles toward closer integration were "superpower chauvinism, nationalism, personal ambitions of those responsible for making political decisions and simple stupidity."
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