CIS MEETING TURNS DOWN RUSSIAN-PROPOSED PEACEMAKING AGENCY.

This morning at the CIS summit in Chisinau, the Council of Foreign Ministers failed to pass Russia’s proposal on creating a CIS Committee on Conflict Situations. Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov admitted that a majority of the ministers had various objections to the proposal. Moscow envisaged an agency endowed with strong powers to deploy Russian troops on territories of member states with token non-Russian units under Russian operational command. Such operations would, under the Russian proposal, be partially financed by CIS countries and would be conducted with a CIS blessing as "collective" operations. Moscow had also designated the chairman of the would-be committee in the person of Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. (Flux, Russian agencies, October 23) Moldovan officials told the Monitor that Moldovan, Georgian, and Azerbaijani officials had caucused to coordinate their position in rejecting the proposal.

Conciliation Commission Reworking Tax Code.