MOSCOW (TASS) — The Soviet Union’s last president, Mikhail Gorbachev, has called for strengthening the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Collective Security treaty Organization (CSTO) and for mending relations with those former Soviet republics which are “at odds” with Russia.

Mikhail Gorbachev

(© Sergei Bobylev / TASS)

On March 2, Gorbachev turns 90. In an interview ahead of his jubilee, he told TASS:

There is the Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. These organizations should be strengthened, and every effort must be exerted to mend relations with the republics we are now at odds with. Such a program is vitally needed.

Gorbachev recalled he had stated many times the Soviet Union could have been preserved “provided it was modernized and reformed and the republics were granted broad rights and real sovereignty.”