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#7 - JRL 7242
pravda.ru
June 27, 2003
American Administration Interested in Cooperation with Former USSR States
The USA has big hopes about the coming summit of GUUAM states

The summit of GUUAM states is to take place on June 3-4 in the city of Yalta. This will be a rather important event in the political life of the former Soviet Union. On the other hand, the summit will not bring any sensations, it will be simply an official meeting. This organization has not been noticed for any special actions throughout its whole existence. The society pays attention to the organization when Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova presidents gather for official meetings. However, the up-coming summit in Yalta will probably raise GUUAM's status and value. It seems that Washington decided to take the organization under its guardianship.

RIA Novosti news agency reported, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had a meeting with ambassadors of Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldavia in Washington on Tuesday. That was just a regular piece of official news. The officials discussed multilateral projects to strengthen the regional security and extend the economic development in the region. In addition to that, Richard Armitage enthusiastically supported the progress, which had been achieved by the USA and GUUAM in the field of transportation and commerce, as well as in the field of the law-enforcement cooperation. The US Deputy Secretary of State said that Washington had big hopes about the coming GUUAM summit in July.

Apparently, Armitage's enthusiasm is based on certain reasons. In fact, the American administration has always paid a lot of attention to GUUAM. Furthermore, the attention to the organization of the former USSR states has been growing lately. It is not ruled out that it is simply a coincidence, but hardly had Russia stirred up its activity to establish new structures to coordinate the cooperation between former Soviet states, when the USA became rather "enthusiastic" about the cooperation with GUUAM.

Probably, one should say that the USA is becoming more active on the territory of the former Soviet Union. There are numerous news messages that report the deployment of American troops in this or that country. It has recently been reported that 15,000 American military men were going to be deployed in the republic of Azerbaijan. One may not say that such activity is new - it has already been noticed before the USA's operation in Afghanistan. We wonder, what the current fuss is about.

Vasily Bubnov

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