QUADRIPARTITE PACT PARTNERS FORM JOINT LEGISLATIVE BODY.

Parliamentary representatives from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan signed yesterday an agreement to set up an Interparliamentary Committee of the four countries, partners to the treaty on "deeper economic and humanitarian integration" signed March 29 by their presidents. The Interparliamentary Committee is supposed to work out model legislative acts serving as a basis for national legislation. It will consist of 10 parliamentarians from each participating country, with each country’s delegation entitled to one vote in the committee. Meetings are planned to be held at least once every four months in St. Petersburg "or in one of the participating countries’ capitals." Russian Federation Council Chairman Yegor Stroyev, who along with Duma Deputy Chairman Sergei Baburin signed for Russia, described the agreement as "the beginning of the four countries’ legislative unification." (Itar-Tass, May 28)

That assessment appears overly sanguine in view of the limited scope of the March 29 agreement which defines the Interparliamentary Committee’s mandate. The Committee was created at an otherwise uneventful, regular quarterly session of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly which ended in Bishkek yesterday without the participation of Ukraine, Uzbekistan, or Turkmenistan.

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