MINSK : Picking Up the Pieces

Still struggling nearly four years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, top officials of the 12 nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States will meet Friday to discuss what pieces of the former union might be put back together.

The CIS summit in Minsk, capital of Belarus, is expected to tackle collective security issues and begin what promises to be a long road toward economic union. Leaders of the evolving alliance of Russia and 11 other former Soviet states have called for a debt-settlement policy, a single customs rate and common markets for the commodities, financial and manpower sectors.

But the electorates in the Soviet Union’s successor states are wary. Independence has nurtured nationalist attitudes, and economic union has the sound of surrendering sovereignty.