In an interview following a meeting of foreign ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Moscow, Borys Tarasyuk said reforms of the association agreed at a summit in Russia in 2005 had stalled.
"Heads of state talk of the need for reform at every meeting, which proves it [the CIS] has not fulfilled its role," Tarasyuk said.
He also said new regional bodies emerging within the CIS were eroding the Commonwealth as an organization.
The Eurasian Economic Community (Eurasec), for example, was founded in 2001 by the Central Asian members of the CIS plus Belarus and Russia. Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova created GUAM, a strategic alliance widely seen as a counterbalance to Russian influence in the region.
Tarasyuk said, however, that Ukraine was set to continue cooperation within the CIS as long as it did not clash with its national interests. He said Ukraine also sought cooperation within the Common Economic Space (CES), designed to ensure the free movement of goods, services, capital, and people and achieve the ultimate goal of abolishing tariffs and harmonizing markets in the key areas such as transport and energy.
Ukraine, a major CES player, seems to have re-oriented to the European Union after a West-leaning government came to power there in late 2004.
Ukraine, which Tarasyuk said could also join the World Trade Organization this fall, has recently declined to sign a package of agreements on forming a customs union that would lay the groundwork for the CES.
