MOSCOW, April 4. /TASS/. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) does not need sweeping reforms, the director of the First CIS Department at the Russian Foreign Ministry said in an interview with the Kommersant daily on Monday.
A reform "in the classical meaning of the word presuppose some radical changes," Mikhail Yevdokimov said.
"We assume that any possible moves to update activity of the CIS should be done in stages, in a balanced manner in order not to lose successful experience of cooperation we have accumulated," he went on.
"It is important to see the CIS remaining a regional international organization with attributes distinctive for such an agency: charter, institution of chairmanship, a permanent executive body," the diplomat continued referring to an alliance of former Soviet republics.
Almost all states of the CIS share this approach, he said. "The CIS does not need any radical reformatting. I believe the overwhelming majority of statutory and sectoral agencies of the commonwealth are operating successfully and play a major role in inter-state cooperation," Yevdokimov said.
"With this in view, it is hardly expedient to speak about complete abolition of some structures of the commonwealth," he said, noting that "the accent should rather be made on their unification and enlargement, optimization of the activity of their administrative agencies, reduction of finance spent on them".