Mutual defence and a vast customs union between the frontiers of Europe and Asia dominated talks Friday at a gathering of ex-Soviet leaders in Minsk. "We have to decide on... the creation of a full customs union," Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko said at the start of talks in the country's grandiose new national library.
Lukashenko was hosting two Moscow-led groupings of former Soviet republics - the Eurasian Economic Community (EEC) and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan are members of both organisations. Armenia is only in the CSTO - a group focussed mainly on anti-terrorism and counter-narcotics that now has wider ambitions.
In a final statement after the EEC meeting, heads of state agreed to "guarantee the interests of member states acceding to the WTO (World Trade Organisation), taking into account the creation of a customs union."
Accession to the WTO - Kyrgyzstan is already a member, while Russia and Kazakhstan are candidates - has been an obstacle to agreeing a customs union planned for 2007 between former Soviet territories. "It's difficult. Important economic interests for each country are involved," Grigory Rapota, the EEC's secretary-general, said.
The main sticking points were agreement on common customs laws, tariffs and investment rules, Rapota said. In an interview with the Respublika daily, Rapota said a customs union would boost overland rail trade between South-East Asia and Europe.
The EEC, he said, was planning direct container transport between the Chinese city of Urumqi and the Belarussian city of Brest - on the border with Poland. The Eurasia Development Bank - a project funded by Russia and Kazakhstan with start-up capital of 1.5 billion dollars - would also start work on boosting economic links later this month, he added.
The Collective Security Treaty Organisation, founded in 1992, met here later Friday. A draft final statement obtained by AFP showed leaders of the security bloc were looking into mutual defence agreements.
The draft statement calls for the creation of mechanisms for "the provision of emergency military-technical assistance to CSTO member states where there is a security threat or against whom an act of aggression has been committed."
The group's secretary general, Nikolai Bordyuzha, called in an interview with the Belarussian Military newspaper for the group to organise "military, peacekeeping and collective reaction forces for emergency situations."
Bordyuzha also said the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) had failed to respond to his offer for co-operation from the grouping of ex-Soviet states.
"It doesn't bother us. The CSTO is quite a developed organisation with significant contacts. Our priority, I note, is the UN, not Nato," Bordyuzha said.
As an example of a successful CSTO project, Bordyuzha referred to a counter-narcotics initiative called "Channel," set up in 2004 and now involving countries such as China, India, Pakistan and the United States.