COOPERATION OF UZBEKISTAN WITHIN THE CIS
Aleksey Kustov,
Chief research fellow, the Institute for Strategic and Regional Studies
under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan.
Annotation
The article considers topical issues of implementing multilateral and bilateral relations of Uzbekistan with
the CIS countries. The author sees the prospects for optimal cooperation in the context of interaction provided by
well-established institutional and legal mechanisms, accelerating innovation and integration processes within the
CIS, due to the common goals of the Commonwealth participants, interests, fields of activity, mutual respect for the
sovereignty of all member states.
Arising as a response to the historic challenge of 1991, the Commonwealth of Independent
States has gone through the thorny path of translating its intentions over the past 27 years, and
today faces fundamentally different possibilities. The nature of the planned future of the CIS
clearly shows that cooperation within the framework of the unification should acquire a new
breath with more intensive dynamics.
From the moment of the formation of the CIS, the Republic of Uzbekistan was among those
states that advocated “deepening economic integration, maintaining economic ties on a new
basis” without politicizing the integration process, without artificially forcing and putting pressure
on each other, having developed their position: economic integration while maintaining political
independence and state sovereignty. Thus, the policy of Uzbekistan is formed primarily under
the influence of pragmatic considerations, and this makes it possible to obtain today the
maximum possible benefit from the membership in the CIS.
More recently, in the press, it was often possible to meet the externally inspired reasoning
that “cooperation within the CIS gives absolutely nothing”, and the organization “dies and the
search for alternative ways of rapprochement is necessary”. However, as the experience of the
27-year existence of the association shows, the Commonwealth of Independent States is the
most optimal form of the development of multilateral cooperation in the interests of those
countries that it unites. The interaction ensured by well-established institutional and legal
mechanisms, as well as the common objectives, interests and fields of activity of the participants
of the Commonwealth, while respecting the sovereignty of the participating States, make it
possible to talk about the strategic prospects of the CIS.
The authoritative expert circles adhere to the understanding that the CIS has stood the test
of time and has confirmed its relevance as an important element in the system of regional and
international relations in the post-Soviet space. The specificity of multilateral relations of the
post-Soviet states on the CIS site lies in their multi-aspectuality, and the scale of the issues
connected with them goes far beyond the framework of bilateral relations.
At the same time, when it comes to the current state of relations of the CIS members and
their immediate prospects in the XXI century, experts point out two circumstances: a deep
historical connection that determines the existence of common interests, and a mutual interest
in expanding the possibilities of good neighborly relations. It is no coincidence that at the meeting
of CIS leaders on October 10-11, 2017, Sh. Mirziyoyev made it clear that a large role in the fate
of the Commonwealth now and in the future belongs to the adaptation of the CIS mechanism to
modern realities, taking into account the interests of all partners.
Today Uzbekistan is actively involved in industry cooperation, implementation of projects
in the trade and economic field, anti-terrorism activities, as well as in a fairly intensively
functioning system of consultations at various levels.
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