ASTANA, May 22 (RIA Novosti) - The Commonwealth of Independent States should become more attractive to its members, the president of Kazakhstan said Monday.
Although the loose association of former Soviet republics celebrates the 15th anniversary of its foundation this year, it has been experiencing difficulties as Georgia and Ukraine are considering their future in the organization and Turkmenistan downgraded its status to an associate member in 2005, leaving 11 full members.
But long-time Kazakh leader Nursultan Nazarbayev was upbeat about the future. "We will now work on the reorganization of the CIS executive body to make the association more attractive to its members," he said.
"This CIS has played an important and a major role in stabilizing the post-Soviet space on the whole and bolstering the independence of our states," the president said.
