NAZARBAEV SAYS NO TO RUSSIA-BELARUS UNION.

In his first public appearance after reelection as president of Kazakhstan (see Central Asia section below), Nursultan Nazarbaev ruled out the idea that his country might join the Russia-Belarus Union. That union “smells of politicking, not of serious business. Kazakhstan will never join such a union,” Nazarbaev told his victory news conference. He called for development of the CIS as an organization of “independent states with equal rights, not of a senior brother and junior brothers” (Itar-Tass citing Kazakhstani Television, January 11).

The statement is a response to the latest high-level suggestions in Moscow that Kazakhstan would join the Russia-Belarus Union, once the union is institutionalized as stipulated in the recent Yeltsin-Lukashenka agreements. Last week, the chairmen of Russia’s Duma and Federation Council, Gennady Seleznev and Yegor Stroyev, anticipated a band-wagon effect–in which the Russia-Belarus Union would pull in Kazakhstan and Ukraine in short order, and more CIS countries in a follow-up stage of expansion (Itar-Tass, January 5; Radio Mayak, January 9).

LUZHKOV’S CLAIM TO SEVASTOPOL IMPERILS TREATY WITH UKRAINE.