10 February 2005	Thursday	30 Zilhaj 1425

KIEV, Feb 9: Ukraine will not encourage anti-government movements in other former Soviet republics like the "orange revolution" that forced out the old regime here late last year, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

"Officials, particularly in the Commonwealth of Independent States, and media have voiced worry about a possible export of the orange revolution to their territory," foreign ministry spokesman Markian Lubkivski said.

"The foreign ministry is categorically against these interpretations... which cast recent events (in Ukraine) as a destructive process itself to destabilize the situation in the post-Soviet space," Lubkivski said.

He added that Ukraine "has never had, and will not have, the goal of destroying stability" in other former Soviet republics.

Lubkivski stated, however, that if any country in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) shared Ukraine's determination to develop civil society and other democratic values and institutions that "it should not be afraid of an orange revolution."

Leaders in at least two other former Soviet republics - Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan - accused political opponents there of trying to recreate a "Ukrainian scenario" in those states.

And Russian President Vladimir Putin late last year also criticized popular revolts in Ukraine and another former Soviet republic, Georgia, saying he was worried about "extra-legal methods... to plunge the post-Soviet space into eternal conflicts." The Pora movement now hopes to export their know-how to other ex-Soviet republics.-AFP