GUAM
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GUAM (Cyrillic: ГУАМ) is a regional organization of four CIS states: Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova. The grouping was created as a way of countering the influence of Russia in the area, and it has received backing and encouragement from the United States. Though at one point it was generally considered to have stagnated, recent developments has caused speculation on the possible revival of the organization.
Until May 5 2005, the organisation was known as GUUAM due to the membership of Uzbekistan, which withdrew from the organisation in 2005.
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History
Cooperation between Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova started with the GUAM consultative forum, established on October 10, 1997, in Strasbourg and named after the initial letters of each of those countries. In April 1999, Uzbekistan also joined, changing the name of the grouping to GUUAM.
A summit in Yalta in 6-7 June, 2001, was accompanied by the signing of GUUAM's charter, which formalized the organization.
In 2002, Uzbekistan however announced that it planned to withdraw from the organization, and following this announcement started to ignore GUUAM summits and meetings.
In the following years the grouping was generally considered to have stagnated: Among other things, the 2004 meeting in Yalta was only attended by two of the five leaders while the GUUAM official website (see below) still shows the old Georgian flag.
However the recent series of "color revolutions" in Georgia and Ukraine, as well as a perceived pro-Western and anti-Russian shift in the political agenda of the Moldovan governing party, followed by increased cooperation and coordination between these three countries, has led many to speculate on the possible revival of GUUAM. [1]
The most recent summit of GUUAM happened in Chişinău, Moldova, on April 22, 2005. The president of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov failed to attend, as did the president of Poland who had been invited as an observer. The president of Romania, Traian Băsescu, and of Lithuania, Valdas Adamkus, both participated as observers, as were the US Department of State special representative for Eurasian conflicts, Steven Mann, and the OSCE Secretary General Jan Kubis. The Russian ambassador in Chişinău criticized the fact that Russia was not invited to attend. [2] Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, said after the summit: "Our organization is emerging as a powerful force, participating in resolving problems in the Caspian-Black Sea region" while the president of Ukraine, Victor Yushchenko, said that a new page had been written in the history of organization. [3]
On May 5, 2005, Uzbekistan finally gave an official notice of withdrawal from the organization to the Moldovan presidency, changing the group's name back to GUAM.
Organizational structure
GUAM is organized as follows:
- An annual meeting occurs between the Presidents of GUAM member states in Yalta. This is considered the supreme body of the organization.
- The executive body is the Council of Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the GUUAM states.
- The working body is the Committee of National Coordinators (CNC) consisting of one coordinator from each GUAM member state.
- The Information Office of the GUAM is in Kyiv
- There are eight working groups, for the following topics: power engineering; transport; trade and economics; information science and telecommunications; culture; science and education; tourism; the struggle against terrorism, organized crime and dissemination of drugs.
Issues
One of the issues associated with GUAM is competition between two proposed transporation corridors to better link Europe with Asia. Russia, Azerbaijan, and Iran have already been through rounds of negotiation on their plan, the North-South Transporation Corridor; neighbouring countries (with the understandable exception of Armenia) have expressed enthusiasm as well. This corridor would travel along the border between Russia and the Baltic states of the European Union, then continue south through Ukraine, The USA would prefer the critical transportation corridor bypass both Russia and Iran. The plan proposed to GUUAM by the United States crosses both the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.