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Eurasia Daily Monitor
Wednesday, June 20, 2007 -- Volume 4, Issue 120
SUMMIT TAKES STOCK OF GUAM'S PROJECTS, INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
by Vladimir Socor
On June 18-19 in Baku, the GUAM countries' annual summit reviewed the
state of implementation of the group's policies, projects, and institutional
development. Presidents Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, Viktor Yushchenko of
Ukraine, Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, and Moldovan Prime Minister Vasile
Tarlev (substituting for President Vladimir Voronin who was attending
top-level meetings in Brussels that day) were joined by Presidents Traian
Basescu of Romania, Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania, and Lech Kaczynski of
Poland, in keeping with the flexible GUAM-Plus formula of cooperation with
the group's partner countries.
Participants focused on policies that constitute GUAM's strategic
raisons d'etre -- namely, Caspian oil and gas transit to Europe and efforts
to resolve the secessionist conflicts. The summit also focused on the
institutionalization of GUAM, which aims to attain the status of an
international organization and recognition as such (GUAM summit communiqués,
June 18-19).
Energy Transit
GUAM's role as an energy bridge between Central Asia and Europe
inherently depends on Kazakhstan's and Turkmenistan's cooperation and on the
European Union's policy on Caspian oil and gas. The signals are negative
from both directions. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev turned down an
invitation to attend the Baku summit, offered to send a minister or deputy
minister instead, and ultimately did not send anyone. Turkmen President
Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov simply ignored Baku's invitation to attend.
Austria's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, invited to represent the lead country
of the Nabucco gas transport project at this summit, also declined to
attend.
Such responses may be seen as corollary to these three countries'
recent agreements with Russia on energy supplies and transit, which, if
implemented, could kill the trans-Caspian westbound transport projects via
GUAM countries to Europe. Their responses reflect -- as did their May
summits and agreements with Russia -- an unraveling of Western policies on
Caspian energy and corresponding advance of Russian energy monopolism there.
The European Union -- putative beneficiary of energy transit projects
through GUAM countries and a focus of their reform programs -- did not deign
to take up the invitation to attend the GUAM summit.
Peacekeeping Force
The proposal to create a GUAM peacekeeping battalion dates back
several years and was reactivated at GUAM's Kyiv summit. Yushchenko and
Defense Minister Anatoliy Hrytsenko subsequently commissioned the Ukrainian
Armed Forces' General Staff to draw up the plans for such a battalion. Kyiv
is the main promoter of this idea in a bid to demonstrate Ukrainian capacity
for regional leadership.
The General Staff Chief, Col.-General Serhiy Kyrychenko, unveiled the
plan's outline just days before the Baku summit. It envisages a 500 to
600-strong unit, including 150 to 200 Ukrainians. A police element could be
added. Each of the four national components would be based in the respective
countries and be called by the chiefs of general staffs for annual exercises
in one of the four countries (Interfax-Ukraine, June 15). According to
Yushchenko shortly before the Baku summit, the battalion could be used for
intervention in ongoing conflicts, conflict-prevention, or humanitarian
operations mandated by the United Nations or the OSCE in any locations,
potentially including GUAM member countries (ANS TV [Baku], June 14; Echo
[Baku], May 16).
However, Georgia would reserve the creation of a GUAM peacekeeping
battalion for the final stage of GUAM's institutional development --
implying a delay of several years -- and would not favor its use on the
territories of GUAM countries. Meanwhile, Georgia plans to double the number
of its soldiers in NATO- and U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and
the Balkans and could hardly spare resources for additional commitments such
as a GUAM battalion. For its part, Moldova declines outright to participate
in the proposed battalion, citing Moldova's status as a neutral state (an
unconvincing argument, given that some neutral and nonaligned countries do
participate in international peacekeeping operations).
At the Baku summit, Ukraine alone proposed going ahead with a GUAM
peacekeeping battalion or at least returning to the issue later on. The
summit's final documents do not mention this subject.
UN Resolution on the Protracted Conflicts
The four GUAM countries have drafted a resolution on the protracted
conflicts on their territories for submission to the United Nations General
Assembly during the ongoing session. The draft resolution condemns armed
separatism, external support for it, and the resulting threat to
international peace and stability. The document underlines the principle of
territorial integrity of states and inviolability of internationally
recognized borders as the basis for resolution of all these conflicts.
Russia (with Armenia in tow) has campaigned against this draft
resolution at the UN and threatened to invite Abkhazia, South Ossetia,
Transnistria, and Karabakh to attend the General Assembly meeting that might
discuss the GUAM draft resolution. The United States initially supported the
draft resolution, but has recently taken a more cautious position, claiming
for example that official U.S. support for the draft resolution might cast
doubt on Washington's impartiality as a mediator in the Armenia-Azerbaijan
conflict. (In contrast, Ukraine is very far indeed from claiming that its
participation would cast doubt on Kyiv's impartiality as an official
`mediator' in the Transnistria conflict).
The undeclared but crucial political and tactical consideration is
timing. With the United States and many of its allies seeking recognition of
Kosovo's independence at the United Nations during the ongoing session, the
timing of GUAM's draft resolution has become inopportune. GUAM countries are
considering the possibility of delaying the submission of their draft
resolution until the end of the current General Assembly session
(technically in early September) or to the next session, possibly depending
on the process of negotiations over Kosovo.
Institutionalization
GUAM can not yet claim the status of an international organization
because its institutionalization is faltering. GUAM's Ukrainian chairmanship
(May 2006-June 2007) has mishandled this issue as well, and Moldova has
added some pinpricks of its own, admittedly proportionate to its weight.
The Ukrainian and Moldovan parliaments have failed for more than a
year to ratify the GUAM Charter. In Ukraine's case, the reason for this
failure is protracted chaos in parliament as well as dislike of GUAM by a
sizeable number of deputies (though some in the Party of Regions may
ultimately vote for ratification). In Moldova's case, the parliament
operates in an orderly manner with a stable majority controlled de facto by
the president. There, the president and his team feel that Moldova has
little to gain from membership in GUAM but has much to lose from irritating
Russia through active participation in GUAM.
Moldovan petty objections have also delayed GUAM decisions on staffing
and financing the Kyiv-based GUAM General Secretariat for many months (Anton
Dogaru, `Moldova Risks Losing the Friendship of GUAM Countries,' Timpul
[Chisinau], May 21). However, Ukrainian authorities bear the main
responsibility for the delay. The General Secretariat's Kyiv headquarters,
allocated in May 2006 to accommodate a staff of eight, is still being
renovated and may be ready for use by November 2007, a full year and a half
after that decision. GUAM's Secretary-General, designated a year ago for a
four-year term, was only able to take up his post in Kyiv this month, albeit
not yet in the headquarters. The holder of this post, Valery Chechelashvili,
is one of Georgia's most distinguished diplomats, hitherto first deputy
minister of foreign affairs.
At GUAM's Baku summit, expectations are that Chechelashvili's
effectiveness and Azerbaijan's chairmanship of GUAM in the next twelve
months can energize the process of GUAM's institutionalization.
--Vladimir Socor
GUAM AT TEN
by Vladimir Socor
Heads of state and governments of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and
Moldova -- the GUAM group of countries -- met June 18-19 in Baku, together
with the presidents of Romania, Poland, and Lithuania. The meeting marks the
tenth year of GUAM's existence. The anniversary summit was not a
celebratory one, however, as GUAM is still a group in search of a specific
role and mission.
Ten years ago, the presidents of these four countries (at that time
Eduard Shevardnadze, Leonid Kuchma, Haydar Aliyev, and Petru Lucinschi) met
during a Council of Europe summit in Strasbourg in October 1997 and decided
to establish a consultative forum of the four countries, effective
immediately. Together, those four presidents attended the 1999 NATO summit
in Washington, where Uzbekistan joined this group, turning it temporarily
into GUUAM.
The venues chosen for those meetings symbolized these countries'
aspirations to develop ties with the West as a counterbalance to Russian
`integration' efforts through the CIS. The United States strongly supported
GUAM from the outset, politically through the State Department as well as
financially through a $44 million grant from the U.S. Congress for GUAM
economic projects. For its part, Russia (irrespective of any U.S.
intentions) has misrepresented GUAM all along in Moscow's official rhetoric
and the controlled mass media as an anti-Russian project.
Since GUAM's inception, the secessionist conflicts and foreign troops
on the territories of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova have topped the
agenda of shared concerns among GUAM countries. Although the group is ten
years old officially, its unofficial creation -- including the acronym
GUAM -- dates to 1996, and the founding father is Azerbaijan's Deputy
Minister of Foreign Affairs Araz Azimov. In that year, Azimov put together
the first GUAM group during debates at the OSCE in Vienna on the
implementation of the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe, foreign
troops on GUAM countries' territories, and the secessionist conflicts.
Azimov took over the chairmanship of the GUAM National Coordinators' Council
at the summit in Baku.
GUAM held its first official summit in June 2001 in Yalta, Ukraine,
adopting a Charter and resolving to advance to the status of an
international organization. From that point on, however, GUAM went through a
prolonged eclipse when Ukraine reverted to a `double-vector' policy and
Moldova to a pro-Russian one. The Congressional funds for GUAM remained
largely unused for lack of convincing projects. Uzbekistan suspended its
membership in 2002 and quit the group officially in April 2005, citing GUAM'
s lack of specific goals and achievements.
After a four-year hiatus, GUAM met again at the summit level in April
2005 in Chisinau, amid hopes generated by regime change in Ukraine and an
orientation change among Moldova's leadership. Dubbed the GUAM Revival
Summit, it was, however, derailed by Ukraine's surprise announcement of an
ill-conceived plan to settle the Transnistria conflict, outside the summit's
agenda and to objections from most participant countries at the event (see
EDM, April 20, 21, 25, 26, 2005). That summit merely decided to create the
post of GUAM National Coordinator in each of the participant countries and
adopted a symbolic declaration on GUAM's course toward European integration
and the creation of common security, economic, and transport spaces.
Institutionalizing GUAM was the goal of the Kyiv summit in May 2006
(see EDM, May 25, 2006), which augmented the group's official title to
Organization for Democracy and Economic Development--GUAM. That summit
adopted a GUAM Charter, created a GUAM Secretariat under a secretary-general
with headquarters in Kyiv, and established an annual sequence of meetings
(the heads of state to meet once a year, the ministers of foreign affairs
twice a year, the national coordinators four times a year). In addition, the
Kyiv summit considered the possible creation of a GUAM peacekeeping
battalion and decided to create a GUAM Free-Trade Zone through convergent
legislation in the four countries.
Institutionalization would enable GUAM to advance from the status of
an informal group to the status of an international organization. However,
the institutionalization agenda and other Kyiv summit decisions remained
unfulfilled in their most important respects by the time of the Baku summit.
The idea of enlarging GUAM's scope through associate memberships or
other formal and informal procedures is also a legacy of the Chisinau and
Kyiv summits. Presidents Traian Basescu of Romania and Valdas Adamkus of
Lithuania took an active part in those two summits and again in Baku, where
President Lech Kaczynski of Poland represented that country for the first
time at a GUAM summit.
These three European Union member countries share with GUAM and
promote within the EU the goals of facilitating Caspian energy transit to
the EU and resolving the secessionist conflicts on terms consistent with EU
values and interests in this region. The EU remains almost demonstratively
aloof from GUAM as a group, however, and the Baku summit was the third one
to which the EU Commission turned down invitations to attend.
To the GUAM countries' delighted surprise, Japan has recently showed
interest in developing relations with GUAM as a group. The Japanese
government announced this concept in policy-setting speeches by Minister of
Foreign Affairs Taro Aso in November 2006 and March 2007, most recently
published in the government's Blue Book. The policy outline envisages
Japanese support for the creation of an `Arc of Freedom and Prosperity'
stretching from Central Asia to the Caspian and Black Sea basins to Ukraine
and potentially farther northward.
The Japanese government has recently discussed its initiative with the
EU in Brussels and it delegated Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Mitoji
Yabunaka to the GUAM summit in Baku. A new format of meetings, GUAM-Japan,
was inaugurated at this summit. This format is due to continue with a focus
on Japanese investment in energy production and transport and mutual
political support in international organizations (GUAM summit communiqués,
June 18-19).
--Vladimir Socor
Wednesday, June 20, 2007 -- Volume 4, Issue 120
SUMMIT TAKES STOCK OF GUAM'S PROJECTS, INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
by Vladimir Socor
On June 18-19 in Baku, the GUAM countries' annual summit reviewed the
state of implementation of the group's policies, projects, and institutional
development. Presidents Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, Viktor Yushchenko of
Ukraine, Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, and Moldovan Prime Minister Vasile
Tarlev (substituting for President Vladimir Voronin who was attending
top-level meetings in Brussels that day) were joined by Presidents Traian
Basescu of Romania, Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania, and Lech Kaczynski of
Poland, in keeping with the flexible GUAM-Plus formula of cooperation with
the group's partner countries.
Participants focused on policies that constitute GUAM's strategic
raisons d'etre -- namely, Caspian oil and gas transit to Europe and efforts
to resolve the secessionist conflicts. The summit also focused on the
institutionalization of GUAM, which aims to attain the status of an
international organization and recognition as such (GUAM summit communiqués,
June 18-19).
Energy Transit
GUAM's role as an energy bridge between Central Asia and Europe
inherently depends on Kazakhstan's and Turkmenistan's cooperation and on the
European Union's policy on Caspian oil and gas. The signals are negative
from both directions. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev turned down an
invitation to attend the Baku summit, offered to send a minister or deputy
minister instead, and ultimately did not send anyone. Turkmen President
Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov simply ignored Baku's invitation to attend.
Austria's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, invited to represent the lead country
of the Nabucco gas transport project at this summit, also declined to
attend.
Such responses may be seen as corollary to these three countries'
recent agreements with Russia on energy supplies and transit, which, if
implemented, could kill the trans-Caspian westbound transport projects via
GUAM countries to Europe. Their responses reflect -- as did their May
summits and agreements with Russia -- an unraveling of Western policies on
Caspian energy and corresponding advance of Russian energy monopolism there.
The European Union -- putative beneficiary of energy transit projects
through GUAM countries and a focus of their reform programs -- did not deign
to take up the invitation to attend the GUAM summit.
Peacekeeping Force
The proposal to create a GUAM peacekeeping battalion dates back
several years and was reactivated at GUAM's Kyiv summit. Yushchenko and
Defense Minister Anatoliy Hrytsenko subsequently commissioned the Ukrainian
Armed Forces' General Staff to draw up the plans for such a battalion. Kyiv
is the main promoter of this idea in a bid to demonstrate Ukrainian capacity
for regional leadership.
The General Staff Chief, Col.-General Serhiy Kyrychenko, unveiled the
plan's outline just days before the Baku summit. It envisages a 500 to
600-strong unit, including 150 to 200 Ukrainians. A police element could be
added. Each of the four national components would be based in the respective
countries and be called by the chiefs of general staffs for annual exercises
in one of the four countries (Interfax-Ukraine, June 15). According to
Yushchenko shortly before the Baku summit, the battalion could be used for
intervention in ongoing conflicts, conflict-prevention, or humanitarian
operations mandated by the United Nations or the OSCE in any locations,
potentially including GUAM member countries (ANS TV [Baku], June 14; Echo
[Baku], May 16).
However, Georgia would reserve the creation of a GUAM peacekeeping
battalion for the final stage of GUAM's institutional development --
implying a delay of several years -- and would not favor its use on the
territories of GUAM countries. Meanwhile, Georgia plans to double the number
of its soldiers in NATO- and U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and
the Balkans and could hardly spare resources for additional commitments such
as a GUAM battalion. For its part, Moldova declines outright to participate
in the proposed battalion, citing Moldova's status as a neutral state (an
unconvincing argument, given that some neutral and nonaligned countries do
participate in international peacekeeping operations).
At the Baku summit, Ukraine alone proposed going ahead with a GUAM
peacekeeping battalion or at least returning to the issue later on. The
summit's final documents do not mention this subject.
UN Resolution on the Protracted Conflicts
The four GUAM countries have drafted a resolution on the protracted
conflicts on their territories for submission to the United Nations General
Assembly during the ongoing session. The draft resolution condemns armed
separatism, external support for it, and the resulting threat to
international peace and stability. The document underlines the principle of
territorial integrity of states and inviolability of internationally
recognized borders as the basis for resolution of all these conflicts.
Russia (with Armenia in tow) has campaigned against this draft
resolution at the UN and threatened to invite Abkhazia, South Ossetia,
Transnistria, and Karabakh to attend the General Assembly meeting that might
discuss the GUAM draft resolution. The United States initially supported the
draft resolution, but has recently taken a more cautious position, claiming
for example that official U.S. support for the draft resolution might cast
doubt on Washington's impartiality as a mediator in the Armenia-Azerbaijan
conflict. (In contrast, Ukraine is very far indeed from claiming that its
participation would cast doubt on Kyiv's impartiality as an official
`mediator' in the Transnistria conflict).
The undeclared but crucial political and tactical consideration is
timing. With the United States and many of its allies seeking recognition of
Kosovo's independence at the United Nations during the ongoing session, the
timing of GUAM's draft resolution has become inopportune. GUAM countries are
considering the possibility of delaying the submission of their draft
resolution until the end of the current General Assembly session
(technically in early September) or to the next session, possibly depending
on the process of negotiations over Kosovo.
Institutionalization
GUAM can not yet claim the status of an international organization
because its institutionalization is faltering. GUAM's Ukrainian chairmanship
(May 2006-June 2007) has mishandled this issue as well, and Moldova has
added some pinpricks of its own, admittedly proportionate to its weight.
The Ukrainian and Moldovan parliaments have failed for more than a
year to ratify the GUAM Charter. In Ukraine's case, the reason for this
failure is protracted chaos in parliament as well as dislike of GUAM by a
sizeable number of deputies (though some in the Party of Regions may
ultimately vote for ratification). In Moldova's case, the parliament
operates in an orderly manner with a stable majority controlled de facto by
the president. There, the president and his team feel that Moldova has
little to gain from membership in GUAM but has much to lose from irritating
Russia through active participation in GUAM.
Moldovan petty objections have also delayed GUAM decisions on staffing
and financing the Kyiv-based GUAM General Secretariat for many months (Anton
Dogaru, `Moldova Risks Losing the Friendship of GUAM Countries,' Timpul
[Chisinau], May 21). However, Ukrainian authorities bear the main
responsibility for the delay. The General Secretariat's Kyiv headquarters,
allocated in May 2006 to accommodate a staff of eight, is still being
renovated and may be ready for use by November 2007, a full year and a half
after that decision. GUAM's Secretary-General, designated a year ago for a
four-year term, was only able to take up his post in Kyiv this month, albeit
not yet in the headquarters. The holder of this post, Valery Chechelashvili,
is one of Georgia's most distinguished diplomats, hitherto first deputy
minister of foreign affairs.
At GUAM's Baku summit, expectations are that Chechelashvili's
effectiveness and Azerbaijan's chairmanship of GUAM in the next twelve
months can energize the process of GUAM's institutionalization.
--Vladimir Socor
GUAM AT TEN
by Vladimir Socor
Heads of state and governments of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and
Moldova -- the GUAM group of countries -- met June 18-19 in Baku, together
with the presidents of Romania, Poland, and Lithuania. The meeting marks the
tenth year of GUAM's existence. The anniversary summit was not a
celebratory one, however, as GUAM is still a group in search of a specific
role and mission.
Ten years ago, the presidents of these four countries (at that time
Eduard Shevardnadze, Leonid Kuchma, Haydar Aliyev, and Petru Lucinschi) met
during a Council of Europe summit in Strasbourg in October 1997 and decided
to establish a consultative forum of the four countries, effective
immediately. Together, those four presidents attended the 1999 NATO summit
in Washington, where Uzbekistan joined this group, turning it temporarily
into GUUAM.
The venues chosen for those meetings symbolized these countries'
aspirations to develop ties with the West as a counterbalance to Russian
`integration' efforts through the CIS. The United States strongly supported
GUAM from the outset, politically through the State Department as well as
financially through a $44 million grant from the U.S. Congress for GUAM
economic projects. For its part, Russia (irrespective of any U.S.
intentions) has misrepresented GUAM all along in Moscow's official rhetoric
and the controlled mass media as an anti-Russian project.
Since GUAM's inception, the secessionist conflicts and foreign troops
on the territories of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova have topped the
agenda of shared concerns among GUAM countries. Although the group is ten
years old officially, its unofficial creation -- including the acronym
GUAM -- dates to 1996, and the founding father is Azerbaijan's Deputy
Minister of Foreign Affairs Araz Azimov. In that year, Azimov put together
the first GUAM group during debates at the OSCE in Vienna on the
implementation of the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe, foreign
troops on GUAM countries' territories, and the secessionist conflicts.
Azimov took over the chairmanship of the GUAM National Coordinators' Council
at the summit in Baku.
GUAM held its first official summit in June 2001 in Yalta, Ukraine,
adopting a Charter and resolving to advance to the status of an
international organization. From that point on, however, GUAM went through a
prolonged eclipse when Ukraine reverted to a `double-vector' policy and
Moldova to a pro-Russian one. The Congressional funds for GUAM remained
largely unused for lack of convincing projects. Uzbekistan suspended its
membership in 2002 and quit the group officially in April 2005, citing GUAM'
s lack of specific goals and achievements.
After a four-year hiatus, GUAM met again at the summit level in April
2005 in Chisinau, amid hopes generated by regime change in Ukraine and an
orientation change among Moldova's leadership. Dubbed the GUAM Revival
Summit, it was, however, derailed by Ukraine's surprise announcement of an
ill-conceived plan to settle the Transnistria conflict, outside the summit's
agenda and to objections from most participant countries at the event (see
EDM, April 20, 21, 25, 26, 2005). That summit merely decided to create the
post of GUAM National Coordinator in each of the participant countries and
adopted a symbolic declaration on GUAM's course toward European integration
and the creation of common security, economic, and transport spaces.
Institutionalizing GUAM was the goal of the Kyiv summit in May 2006
(see EDM, May 25, 2006), which augmented the group's official title to
Organization for Democracy and Economic Development--GUAM. That summit
adopted a GUAM Charter, created a GUAM Secretariat under a secretary-general
with headquarters in Kyiv, and established an annual sequence of meetings
(the heads of state to meet once a year, the ministers of foreign affairs
twice a year, the national coordinators four times a year). In addition, the
Kyiv summit considered the possible creation of a GUAM peacekeeping
battalion and decided to create a GUAM Free-Trade Zone through convergent
legislation in the four countries.
Institutionalization would enable GUAM to advance from the status of
an informal group to the status of an international organization. However,
the institutionalization agenda and other Kyiv summit decisions remained
unfulfilled in their most important respects by the time of the Baku summit.
The idea of enlarging GUAM's scope through associate memberships or
other formal and informal procedures is also a legacy of the Chisinau and
Kyiv summits. Presidents Traian Basescu of Romania and Valdas Adamkus of
Lithuania took an active part in those two summits and again in Baku, where
President Lech Kaczynski of Poland represented that country for the first
time at a GUAM summit.
These three European Union member countries share with GUAM and
promote within the EU the goals of facilitating Caspian energy transit to
the EU and resolving the secessionist conflicts on terms consistent with EU
values and interests in this region. The EU remains almost demonstratively
aloof from GUAM as a group, however, and the Baku summit was the third one
to which the EU Commission turned down invitations to attend.
To the GUAM countries' delighted surprise, Japan has recently showed
interest in developing relations with GUAM as a group. The Japanese
government announced this concept in policy-setting speeches by Minister of
Foreign Affairs Taro Aso in November 2006 and March 2007, most recently
published in the government's Blue Book. The policy outline envisages
Japanese support for the creation of an `Arc of Freedom and Prosperity'
stretching from Central Asia to the Caspian and Black Sea basins to Ukraine
and potentially farther northward.
The Japanese government has recently discussed its initiative with the
EU in Brussels and it delegated Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Mitoji
Yabunaka to the GUAM summit in Baku. A new format of meetings, GUAM-Japan,
was inaugurated at this summit. This format is due to continue with a focus
on Japanese investment in energy production and transport and mutual
political support in international organizations (GUAM summit communiqués,
June 18-19).
--Vladimir Socor