Ukraine is interested in bilateral cooperation with former Soviet countries and in the creation of a free trade area with them, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has said.
"We are very interested in cooperating with former Soviet states both at a bilateral level and at the level of the creation of a free trade area with this union [the CIS]. And Ukraine’s position will be more active than it was before," he said at the tenth meeting of the heads of Ukraine’s foreign diplomatic institutions on Tuesday.
Yanukovych said that one of the main tasks was to diversify the country’s sources of energy supplies.
"And the countries of the Central Asia and the Caspian region will play an important role in this," he said.
Yanukovych said that with Russia’s key role in the CIS, other countries should also play a determining role.
"Certainly, Russia’s participation in this union [the CIS] is the key one. But we’ve set the task of giving each state in this union the chance to take a worthy place and cooperate on an equal footing," he added.
