PUTIN: CIS REACHED A LANDMARK - EITHER STRENGTHENING OR COLLAPSE

PanARMENIAN.Net - The CIS has reached "a certain landmark" - either strengthening, or collapse, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated at the sitting of the country's Security Council today. "We have faced an alternative: either we attain the high-quality strengthening of the CIS, create an actually working, influential regional structure in the world, or a "collapse" of the geo-political space is impending," Putin said. In his opinion, ITAR-TASS Russian news agency reported, in the second case the developments will result in "the final decrease of interest of the participant states towards working within the Commonwealth." At that Putin is convinced Russia does not have the right to admit the CIS to collapse. At that he noted that Russia does not hold a monopoly of activities in the CIS space, although "owing to a number of objective causes Russia was and remains the engine of integration processes in the CIS space." The President called to follow the example of other regional organizations in the post-Soviet space - the CSTO, EurAsEC, JES, calling those structures "more dynamic."