Azernews.Az

Georgia`s President Mikheil Saakashvili has announced the pro-Western country`s pullout from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a union of former Soviet republics.
"We have passed a decision based on consultations, and I am stating jointly with the parliament chairman that Georgia is seceding from CIS," Saakashvili said to the acclaim of the crowd that gathered outside the parliament building.
"We are bidding farewell to the Soviet Union. The USSR will never come back here," he told the rally.
Saakashvili urged other CIS states to follow suit. "We call on Ukraine and other CIS states to secede from this union that is governed by Russia, which does not reckon with anyone else."
Saakashvili said Tbilisi would also pull out of the agreement on the peacekeeping operations in the volatile Georgian region of Abkhazia.
"Our decision is to denunciate the peacekeeping mission in Abkhazia, which I already told the American president and other world leaders, to declare the Russian army in Abkhazia as an occupying force and to declare Abkhazia and South Ossetia [another unrecognized republic] as occupied territories," the Georgian leader said.
"Not a single Georgian will calm down until a single invader remains on our soil," he added.
Hostilities erupted in Georgia`s unrecognized republic of South Ossetia on Friday. Russian troops entered the region and pounded Georgian positions after Georgian forces bombarded the capital of the breakaway province, Tskhinvali, in what Tbilisi termed as restoration of the constitutional order. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday ordered to halt military action in Georgia, saying Moscow had accomplished its goal of convincing Tbilisi to step on the path of peace.