You're reading: Minsk bombing has not made Kyrgyzstan scrap plan to join Customs Union

A deadly bombing in the metro of Minsk, capital of Belarus, on Monday has not made Kyrgyzstan scrap its plan to join the Customs Union, an association whose member states may abolish customs control on their mutual borders, a senior Kyrgyz minister said on Tuesday.

"We must fight terrorists and separatists together, and [the Minsk attack] will have no effect on our decision to join the Customs Union," First Deputy Prime Minister Omurbek Babanov told reporters.

Today’s members of the Customs Union – Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan – account for a total of 47% of Kyrgyzstan’s trade, Babanov said in advocating his country’s planned entry to the Union.

The minister said Kyrgyzstan would decide by July 1 what changes it needs to make to its trading policy in line with requirements for joining the Union. Changes also need to be made to Kyrgyz law, he said.

The chief of the Russian Federal Customs Service Andrei Belyaninov argued that initially Kyrgyzstan’s membership in the Union would mean some losses both for Russia and Kyrgyzstan because of differences in the two countries’ law systems, but that, in strategic terms, Kyrgyzstan’s being in the alliance would be in its own interest and in that of the Union’s current members.