TASHKENT : Everybody Shares

Military issues weigh heavily on the proposed agenda for a meeting in Uzbekistan’s capital Friday of the leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the loose alliance of 11 of the 15 former Soviet republics forged late last year as a successor to the Soviet state.

Commonwealth heads of state, meeting for the fifth time, are to discuss the transfer of nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan to Russia, the fate of Soviet chemical weapons and a budget for the organization’s joint strategic force.

The leaders are also expected to design a mechanism for dividing the assets and debts of the Soviet State Bank and debate splitting the civilian fleets of the Soviet Union among the republics.