SUMMIT RESCHEDULED, AGENDA OUTLINED.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin yesterday proposed a tentative agenda and date–April 2–for a CIS summit. The date is being submitted to the eleven other presidents for approval. Originally scheduled for last October, the summit was to have focused on streamlining the CIS, but has been held up by most member countries’ opposition to the streamlining proposals designed to increase Moscow’s influence.

Controversial problems have since piled up, rendering the next summit’s agenda ever more thorny. Besides reorganization, the agenda which the Kremlin made public yesterday includes appointing a CIS executive secretary and prolonging the CIS Collective Security Treaty. Three countries have declined to sign the protocol on the treaty’s prolongation, making six which are not parties to the treaty and leaving only five countries willing to join Russia in that pact (Itar-Tass, March 17; see also the Monitor, March 8-12).

“NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T.”