Azerbaijani President Talks on Future of GUUAM

(Tbilisi, Civil Georgia, July 22, 2002) – “The GUUAM [Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Moldova] can merge another organization,” Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev told the reporters on July 22, while commenting the Presidential summit of the GUUAM on July 19-20.

Reports say quoting President Aliyev that the GUUAM was created as an economic organization and only then it was transformed into political one. He said that the organization’ activity is not directed against the third country and it does not aim to be the competitor of other regional organizations.

The Presidential summit of GUUAM in Yalta, Ukraine was held without Uzbekistan, which has announced about its withdrawal from the organization in June. Despite of Uzbekistan’s pull out Presidents of rest of the GUUAM countries are optimistic concerning the future of the organization.