Leaders of CIS leaders sought Friday to breath new life into the organization, which has struggled to be effective amid internal divisions and bureaucratic barriers.

The Commonwealth of Independent States adopted a plan calling for the gradual achievement of a "qualitatively new level of interaction" among member nations of the CIS, which includes all former Soviet republics except the three Baltic states.

The document, approved at a CIS summit in the capital of Tajikistan, emphasized that "increasing the effectiveness of the Commonwealth (is) the main task at the current stage of its development," Russia’s ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Underlining Moscow’s dominance of the CIS and its attention to security issues, its members approved the replacement of its longtime executive secretary, who is Russian, with the current head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Lebedev, ITAR-Tass said.

The CIS was created amid the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, and has become less cohesive as some members seek to decrease Russia’s influence on their nations and court the West - and China - to varying degrees. It has done little to resolve long-running conflicts among members.

Its summits often produce pledges for improvement but little of substance.

The declaration adopted Friday bemoaned the lack of implementation of CIS decisions and said it is essential that members be on the same page. It said that to boost effectiveness means "reaching a common understanding on ... the legal status of decisions of CIS bodies and provisions for implementation by the states of their commitments.

The meeting was attended by the presidents of 11 members and foreign minister of Ukraine, whose President Viktor Yushchenko was traveling in Europe. The members are Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.