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Russian President Vladimir Putin Monday set the goal of rapidly establishing a new economic zone between Russia and three other post-Soviet states as Moscow seeks to establish an effective bloc in the former Soviet Union.
Putin and his counterparts from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus gathered in the Ukrainian Black Sea resort of Yalta to discuss their new body - modelled loosely on the European Common Market, forerunner of today's European Union.
"Our aim is to create a new union which will be an engine of growth in Eurasia," Putin said at the start of the talks.
"We can achieve concrete results by 2005 to 2006," he predicted.
Russia, which is by far the dominant player in the new body, has been seeking increasingly to re-establish its influence in the former Soviet Union, in competition with the United States.
The Russian president said the four countries needed to create a supra-national regulatory body and harmonise their customs tariffs.
"Economic integration and free movement of goods, services and labour will modernise our economies and improve our citizens' quality of life," Putin said.
The four former Soviet republics signed a pact to create the free-trade zone on their territory - which comprises much of the former Soviet Union - during a summit in Yalta last September and their parliaments have ratified the accord.
However, a Russian official quoted Sunday expressed doubt that the creation of a common market would take place until 2007.
Ukraine has faced both domestic and international pressure not to sign the pact, with critics saying it could hurt Kiev's hopes of one day joining the European Union and the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Belarus, meanwhile, has been in repeated conflict with its much larger and more powerful neighbour Russia as it expands its presence in the Belarusian economy.
In February, Russian gas giant Gazprom briefly shut off its supplies to Belarus, accusing it of illegally siphoning off gas.
Gazprom currently sells gas to Belarus at a subsidised price, but wants to charge the same price as for other ex-Soviet republics. Belarus has accused Moscow of trying to use the supplies as a way of wresting control over the country's gas transport network, Beltransgaz, which is being privatised.
Kazakhstan, an energy-rich Central Asian state, meanwhile has built close ties with the United States as Western oil majors are pumping billions of dollars in investments into the country.
Putin, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan and Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine are expected after the Yalta summit to instruct their governments to draw up more than 100 draft laws or agreements before the end of the year that will make up the constitution of the Common Economic Space (CES).

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2004

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