Commonwealth Is Not a State, Ukraine Insists : Soviet politics: Republic lawmakers pass resolution designed to head off suspected Russian power grab.

On the eve of a key summit meeting of leaders from 11 old Soviet republics, Ukraine stressed Friday that it will not permit the emerging Commonwealth of Independent States to become a reincarnation of the crumbling Soviet Union.

In a statement heralding discord that may plague today’s talks in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, Ukrainian lawmakers voiced resounding opposition to “the transformation of the commonwealth . . . into a state creation with its own organs of government and administration.”

Implicitly rejecting what they suspect is a plan by Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin to use the commonwealth as a vehicle to project Russia’s power throughout the dying Soviet empire, the lawmakers by a vote of 225-9 reiterated Ukraine’s intention of acquiring its own army, currency and systems of banking, customs, transportation and communications.

Ukraine, along with Russia and Belarus, founded the commonwealth at a closed-door meeting of leaders of the big-three Slavic republics Dec. 7-8. But lately there has been mounting concern that the commonwealth accord, sponsored by Yeltsin and designed to safeguard inter-republic ties as the Soviet Union collapses, could become a Trojan horse for Russian domination.

In the unwavering view of Ukrainian President Leonid M. Kravchuk, the commonwealth should be nothing more than a loose grouping of independent countries akin to the European Community, not a super-government above the republics.

Friday’s legislative resolution was meant “to give Kravchuk a stronger hand in Alma-Ata,” lawmaker Volodymyr Filenko explained.

Les Taniuk, a member of the legislature’s Presidium, said Kravchuk read the text of the resolution before the vote and made only minor changes. It specifically rules out acceptance of any meaningful powers for the commonwealth, stipulating that “coordinating institutions in the framework of the commonwealth cannot have government functions. Their decisions are (merely) advisory.”

In Alma-Ata, capital of the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan, Kravchuk later Friday joined leaders of nine other republics--Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Tadzhikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Kazakhstan--for high-level talks on how to restructure their relations in the post-Soviet era.

Negotiations will begin in earnest this morning after Yeltsin, who has been on a state visit to Italy, flies in.

The presidents are to hold a two-hour meeting behind closed doors at the residence of Kazakhstan’s head of state, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and sign documents expanding the commonwealth beyond its original members, the three Slavic republics.

“We want to become full-fledged members of this historic meeting which will form the Commonwealth of Independent States,” Moldovan President Mircea Snegur told reporters after arriving in the Kazakh capital.

Armenia’s president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, also proclaimed his government’s desire to join, saying the commonwealth “provides for complete independence under which each of the republics will have to prove its viability.”

Azerbaijan’s president, Ayaz Mutalibov, was attending to clarify the terms under which his oil-rich homeland on the Caspian Sea might join, although the republic’s National Council voted Friday night against membership.

Mutalibov wants the commonwealth to recognize Azerbaijan’s current borders, which encompass the fiercely disputed Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Georgia was the only one of the 12 remaining republics of the old Soviet Union not to be represented by its leader, ultranationalist Zviad Gamsakhurdia, but he sent observers.

As well as determining the future geography of the Soviet Union, the Alma-Ata meeting should also seal the political fate of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who was intentionally left off the guest list and whose government is scheduled to pass into history Dec. 31.

In what appeared to be a farewell phone call to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Gorbachev said he “in all likelihood, will concentrate on public activities” once the commonwealth replaces the Soviet Union, presidential spokesman Andrei S. Grachev said.

He said Gorbachev also told a group of foreign business leaders that he doesn’t rule out becoming the leader of an international committee to aid the “citizens of the former Soviet Union,” who are now living through an anxious winter of food and energy shortages.

Nazarbayev and other Central Asian leaders have been highly critical of the secret negotiations that led to the Slavic republics’ forming the commonwealth, and they will insist in Alma-Ata that their governments not be taken in as second-class members.

The leaders of Turkmenistan, a strip of poverty-stricken desert on the Soviet border with Afghanistan and Iran, said that if their predominantly Muslim republic is not made a “co-founder” of the commonwealth along with Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, it will not sign the commonwealth accord.

During his visit to Rome, Yeltsin revealed that one of the most significant accomplishments of the Alma-Ata talks should be agreement on a “united command of the strategic (nuclear) forces,” addressing the problem posed by the Soviet breakup that most worries the rest of the world.

He provided no details, but matters of security and defense have been among the murkiest since the commonwealth was proclaimed Dec. 8. Moreover, there is evident disagreement between the two richest and most powerful members--Russia and Ukraine--on what, exactly, constitutes “strategic forces.”

After meeting in Moscow on Monday with Secretary of State James A. Baker III, Yeltsin defined such forces as including the Soviet navy, air force, air defense command and intelligence, as well as the Strategic Rocket Forces themselves.

For its part, Ukraine has laid claim to a part of the Black Sea fleet, and, although it reiterated the goal of making Ukraine a “non-nuclear state,” the Parliament here on Friday again emphasized that it intends to set up a Ukrainian military rooted in an estimated 1.2 million Soviet soldiers now on the republic’s soil.

When they ratified the commonwealth agreement Dec. 10. Ukraine’s lawmakers also attached many amendments to the text to enhance Ukraine’s independence.

For example, the text of the pact calls for “coordination” of foreign policy, but legislators here altered it to require only “consultations.” They also inserted a reservation giving Ukraine the explicit right to terminate the agreement.

Free-lance journalist Mary Mycio, in Kiev, contributed to this report.