MOSCOW, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin will confirm 29 agreements at a free trade summit with three former Soviet republics Wednesday, Interfax news agency reported.
The Russian leader will fly to Astana, the new capital of Kazakhstan, where he is expected to approve a raft of 29 agreements to create a Common Economic Space Agreement with the three other most important former Soviet republics in the Commonwealth of Independent States: Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus.
Putin will meet in Astana with Presidents Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine, Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan and Alexander Lukashenka of Belarus.
"Moscow hopes that these 29 documents will be signed and ratified before the end of 2004, which will lead to the formation of a truly functioning free trade zone and create conditions for shaping a full-scale customs union and a free market of capital and workforce," Putin's aide Sergei Prikhodko told the news agency.
