Member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States

There are 9 member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Member states

Membership status

The Creation Agreement remained the main constituent document of the CIS until January 1993, when the CIS Charter (Russian: Устав, Ustav) was adopted.[1] The charter formalized the concept of membership: a member country is defined as a country that ratifies the CIS Charter (sec. 2, art. 7). Parties to CIS Creation Agreement but not the Charter are considered to be "Founding States" but not a full members.

Turkmenistan has not ratified the Charter and therefore is not formally a member of the CIS. Nevertheless, it has consistently participated in the CIS as if it were a member state. Turkmenistan changed its CIS standing to associate member as of 26 August 2005 in order to be consistent with its UN-recognised international neutrality status[2][3]

In light of Russia's support for the independence of breakaway regions within Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine,[4][5][6] as well as its violation of the Istanbul Agreement (see Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty), legislative initiatives to denounce the agreement on the creation of CIS were tabled in Moldova's parliament on 25 March 2014, though they were not approved.[7][8][9] A similar bill was proposed in January 2018.[10][11]

List of members

Country Signed Ratified Charter ratified Membership Status
 Armenia1991-12-211992-02-181994-03-16official member
 Azerbaijan1991-12-211993-09-241993-12-14official member
 Belarus1991-12-081991-12-101994-01-18official member
 Kazakhstan1991-12-211991-12-231994-04-20official member
 Kyrgyzstan1991-12-211992-03-061994-04-12official member
 Moldova1991-12-211994-04-081994-06-27official member
 Russia1991-12-081991-12-121993-07-20official member
 Tajikistan1991-12-211993-06-261993-08-04official member
 Uzbekistan1991-12-211992-04-011994-02-09official member

Parties of the Creation Agreement

Two states, Ukraine and Turkmenistan, have ratified the CIS Creation Agreement, making them "founding states of the CIS", but did not ratify the subsequent Charter that would make them members of the CIS. These states, while not being formal members of the CIS, were allowed to participate in CIS.[12] They were also allowed to participate in various CIS initiatives, e.g. the Commonwealth of Independent States Free Trade Area,[13] which were, however, formulated mostly as independent multilateral agreements, and not as internal CIS agreements. Additionally, Ukraine became an associate member state of the CIS Economic Union in 1994 and Turkmenistan an associate member state of the CIS in 2005.

Country[14] Agreement/protocol ratified Charter ratified Notes
 Turkmenistan 26 December 1991 Not ratified "Founding state". Has never been a member. "Associate state" since 2005.
 Ukraine 10 December 1991 Not ratified "Founding state". Has never been a member. Largely ceased to participate in CIS from 2014, and withdrew representatives from all statutory bodies of CIS in 2018 as a result of the Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and Russia's involvement in the War in Donbass[15]

Ukraine

Although Ukraine was one of the states which ratified the Creation Agreement in December 1991, making it a Founding State of the CIS, it chose not to ratify the CIS Charter[16][17] as it disagrees with Russia being the only legal successor state to the Soviet Union. Thus it has never been a full a member of the CIS.[18][19] However, Ukraine kept participating in the CIS, despite not being a member. In 1993, Ukraine became an associate member of CIS,[20]

Following the Russian military intervention in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, relations between Ukraine and Russia deteriorated, leading Ukraine to consider ending its participation in the CIS. As Ukraine never ratified the Charter, it could cease its informal participation in the CIS. However, to fully terminate its relationship with the CIS it would need to legally withdraw from the Creation Agreement, as Georgia did previously. On 14 March 2014, a bill was introduced to Ukraine's parliament to denounce their ratification of the CIS Creation Agreement, but it was never approved.[21][22][23] Following the 2014 parliamentary election, a new bill to denounce the CIS agreement was introduced.[24][25] In September 2015, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed Ukraine will continue taking part in the CIS "on a selective basis".[26][27] Since that month, Ukraine has had no representatives in the CIS Executive Committee building.[26] In April 2018, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko indicated that Ukraine would formally leave the CIS.[28] As of 1 June the CIS secretariat had not received formal notice from Ukraine of its withdrawal from the CIS, a process which will take 1 year following notice being given.[29][30][31][32][33][34][35]

On 19 May 2018, President Poroshenko signed a decree formally ending Ukraine's participation in CIS statutory bodies.[36] The CIS secretariat stated that it will continue inviting Ukraine to participate.[33] Ukraine has further stated that it intends to review its participation in all CIS agreements, and only continue in those that are in its interests.[37][38] The CIS secretariat stated that they will keep inviting Ukraine to participate in CIS activities.[33]

Former member states

Country Signed Ratified Charter ratified Withdrawn Effective
 Georgia3 December 199319 April 199418 August 200817 August 2009

Georgia

Following the overthrow of Eduard Shevardnadze in Georgia, Georgia officially withdrew from the Council of Defense Ministers in February 2006 with a statement that "Georgia has taken a course to join NATO and it cannot be part of two military structures simultaneously",[39][40]

In the aftermath of the Russo-Georgian War in 2008, President Saakashvili announced during a public speech in the capital city Tbilisi that Georgia would leave the CIS[41] and the Georgian Parliament voted unanimously on 14 August 2008 to withdraw from the regional organization.[42] On 18 August 2008 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia sent a note to the CIS Executive Committee notifying it of the aforesaid resolutions of the Parliament of Georgia and Georgia’s withdrawal from CIS.[43] In accordance with the CIS Charter (sec. 1, art. 9),[1] Georgia's withdrawal came into effect 12 months later, on 18 August 2009.[44][45]

References

  1. CIS Charter Archived 2006-07-20 at the Library of Congress Web Archives, 22 January 1993 (unofficial English translation). Russian text here Archived 2009-02-07 at the Wayback Machine
  2. Decision on Turkmenistan's associate membership, CIS Executive Committee meeting in Kazan, Russia, 26 August 2005 (in Russian).
  3. Turkmenistan reduces CIS ties to "Associate Member", Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 29 August 2005.
  4. Buckley, Neil (25 November 2014). "Georgia calls on west to condemn Abkhazia treaty with Russia". Financial Times. Retrieved 9 May 2015.
  5. Rettman, Andrew (7 May 2015). "Donbas: A new 'black hole' in Europe". Retrieved 9 May 2015.
  6. "Russia Erecting Monument to 'Little Green Men' Who Took Over Crimea". Moscow Times. 26 April 2015. Retrieved 9 May 2015.
  7. In Moldova propose to denounce the agreement on creation of CIS. Ukrinform. 25 March 2014
  8. "Proiectul hotărîrii cu privire la denunțarea Acordului de constituire a Comunității Statelor Independente". Parliament of the Republic of Moldova. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  9. "Proiectul legii cu privire la denunțarea Acordului de constituire a Comunității Statelor Independente nr.40-XII din 08.04.1994". Parliament of the Republic of Moldova. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  10. "Proiectul hotărîrii cu privire la denunțarea Acordului de constituire a Comunității Statelor Independente". Parliament of the Republic of Moldova. 2018-01-02. Retrieved 2018-01-29.
  11. "Moldova Says It Would Leave CIS Only After Becoming EU Candidate". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 2018-01-25. Retrieved 2018-01-29.
  12. "Ukraine's withdrawal from CIS to take one year - Vestnik Kavkaza". vestnikkavkaza.net. Archived from the original on 13 August 2018. Retrieved 12 August 2018.
  13. "FREE TRADE AGREEMENT BETWEEN AZERBAIJAN, ARMENIA, BELARUS, GEORGIA, MOLDOVA, KAZAKHSTAN, THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION, UKRAINE, UZBEKISTAN, TAJIKISTAN AND THE KYRGYZ REPUBLIC" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 30 March 2019. Retrieved 21 July 2018.
  14. "Сведения о ратификации документов, принятых в рамках СНГ в 1991 – 2014 годах". Commonwealth of Independent States. Archived from the original on 11 May 2015. Retrieved 10 October 2014.
  15. Ponomarenko, Illia (19 May 2018). "Ukraine withdraws all envoys from CIS bodies". Kyiv Post. Archived from the original on 20 May 2018. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  16. Sussex, Matthew (2012-10-04). Conflict in the Former USSR. ISBN 9780521763103. Retrieved 25 September 2014.
  17. Russia and Nis Mineral Industry Handbook. 2007-02-07. ISBN 9781433041181. Retrieved 25 September 2014.
  18. Ratification status of CIS documents as of 15 January 2008 Archived 30 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine (Russian)
  19. September 2008 Statement by Foreign Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Ohryzko, "Ukraine does not recognise the legal personality of this organisation, we are not members of the CIS Economic Court, we did not ratify the CIS Statute, thus, we cannot be considered a member of this organisation from international legal point of view. Ukraine is a country-participant, but not a member country"
  20. d'Anieri, Paul J. (July 1999). Economic Interdependence in Ukrainian-Russian Relations. ISBN 9780791442463. Retrieved 25 September 2014.
  21. "Bill introduced to withdraw Ukraine from CIS". Kyiv Post. 15 March 2014. Retrieved 27 March 2014.
  22. "Результати пошуку законопроектiв, зареєстрованих Верховною Радою України". Retrieved 25 September 2014.
  23. "Draft documents on Ukraine's withdrawal from CIS submitted to Verkhovna Rada". Information Telegraph Agency of Russia. 27 May 2014. Retrieved 21 June 2014.
  24. "Проект Постанови про припинення членства та участі України в органах Співдружності Незалежних Держав". Verkhovna Rada. Retrieved 30 November 2014.
  25. "Проект Закону про зупинення дії Угоди про створення Співдружності Незалежних Держав". Verkhovna Rada. Retrieved 26 December 2014.
  26. Ukraine to selectively work as part of CIS, BelTA (21 September 2015)
  27. Yatsenyuk says Ukraine will drop Commonwealth of Independent States criminal search database system on Aug 24, Kyiv Post (20 August 2015)
  28. "Ukraine to officially quit CIS – Poroshenko". UNIAN. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  29. http://vestnikkavkaza.net/news/Ukraine-s-withdrawal-from-CIS-to-take-one-year.html
  30. "CIS Executive Secretary hopes Ukraine will remain member nation of the CIS". 2018-06-01. Archived from the original on 2018-07-21. Retrieved 2018-07-21.
  31. . 2018-06-01 https://112.international/ukraine-top-news/ukraine-did-not-officially-inform-on-its-withdrawal-from-cis-cis-executive-committee-27895.html. Retrieved 2018-04-23. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  32. "Kyrgyz envoy: CIS to consider Ukraine's withdrawal as soon as Kyiv files official application". Interfax-Ukraine. 2018-06-02. Retrieved 2018-07-21.
  33. "CIS to continue sending meeting invitations to Ukraine". 2018-05-23. Retrieved 2018-07-21.
  34. "Ukraine's withdrawal from CIS to not bring it closer to EU, - Russia". 2018-05-22. Retrieved 2018-07-21.
  35. "Executive Committee Chairman: CIS states interested in keeping Ukraine as member". 2018-10-11. Retrieved 2018-12-08.
  36. "Poroshenko signs decree on final termination of Ukraine's participation in CIS statutory bodies". Retrieved 2018-05-19.
  37. "Ukraine to not denounce agreements on transit, employment within CIS". 2018-04-16. Retrieved 2018-07-21.
  38. "Ukraine to reconsider all international agreements with CIS, - Poroshenko". 2018-05-21. Retrieved 2018-07-21.
  39. Georgia opts out of ex-Soviet military cooperation body - Pravda.Ru
  40. RIA Novosti - World - Georgia's quitting CIS council will not affect security - Russian minister
  41. Georgia intends to leave the CIS on CNN.com, 12 August 2008.
  42. Georgian parliament votes to withdraw from CIS on BBC News, 14 August 2008
  43. Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia on Georgia's withdrawal from CIS Archived 2008-09-03 at the Wayback Machine, 18 August 2008.
  44. Georgia's CIS membership terminates in August 2009, press conference of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov after the meeting of the CIS Council of Foreign Ministers, Bishkek, 9 October 2008
  45. "Georgia Withdraws from Bloc", by Ellen Barry, New York Times, 18 August 2009. Retrieved on 22 August 2009.
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