ID :
11351
Thu, 07/03/2008 - 21:29
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https://oananews.org//node/11351
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Georgia-Abkhazia tensions white-hot
MOSCOW, July 2 (By Itar-Tass World Service writer Lyudmila
Alexandrova) -- Georgia's relations with its breakaway territory,
self-proclaimed republic of Abkhazia, are white-hot - explosions, border closure, verbal exchanges. In the meantime, there were rumors just recently about some secret plan for settling the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict that would split Abkhazia into Russian and Georgian spheres of influence. At the official level Moscow emphatically denied this.
Analysts believe that the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict has been
unfrozen attempts are now being made again by all parties to somehow
change the legal and law enforcement space around Abkhazia.
On July 1 Abkhazia declared it was closing its administrative border with Georgia. The measure followed a spate of explosions in Abkhazian localities over the last two days of June. There were four explosions in Sukhumi and Gagra. Twelve people were injured. The president of the self-proclaimed republic, Sergei Bagapash, blamed the blasts on Georgian secret services.
An assistant to the commander of the Collective Peace-Keeping Force, Alexander Diordiyev, for his part, said Georgian secret services were creating tensions in the zone of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict and bore the responsibility for provocations against the CIS peacekeepers. This statement followed shortly after an explosion occurred between a post of the Georgian state security ministry and peacekeepers' roadblock.
"The decision to close the border is a temporary measure. We wish to make the visiting holidaymakers and our own citizens secure from such things. We have no doubts that the latest explosions in Sukhumi and Gagra were staged by Georgian secret services," said Abkhazia's foreign minister, Sergei Shamba.
Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze responded the Abkhazian
authorities' decision to close the administrative border in the Gali
district was archaic.
"We shall certainly make a proportionate response, because these
destructive actions turn the position of people in the Gali district for the worse," Gurgenidze said.
After the breakup of the USSR Abkhazia, until then part of the
Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, proclaimed its independence. Georgia in August 1992 moved troops to Abkhazia only to meet with firm
resistance. The armed conflict, in which Georgia lost control of
Abkhazia, ended on August 30, 1993. Abkhazia has pressed for the official recognition of its independence ever since. Tbilisi keeps saying Abkhazia is part and parcel of Georgia and offers wide autonomy.
The latest incidents occurred against a backdrop of active discussions of Abkhazia's future. The Abkhazian president last week met with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow. The two men discussed the outlook for a resumption of the peace process between Georgia and Abkhazia.
The daily Kommersant then said that Bagapsh and Medvedev considered, among other things, Georgia's proposal for dividing Abkhazia into two zones of influence - a large Russian and small Georgian one - on the condition Georgia's sovereignty was formally restored to the entire territory.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphatically dismissed the
rumors Georgia and Russia were discussing a split of Abkhazia.
"This is a lie. It has nothing to do with the reality," the chief
Russian diplomat said.
Sukhumi declared it would never agree to such an arrangement.
"We shall never discuss any division of our territory into spheres of Georgian and Russian influence. Abkhazia is an independent state within very specific borders," the Abkhazian presidential representative in the Gali district, Ruslan Kishmaria, said.
However, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin has
confirmed after a meeting with his Georgian counterpart Grigol Vashadze "there is a certain set of ideas of how to bring about Georgian-Abkhazian settlement."
In the meantime, on Tuesday Russia and Abkhazia restored a regular
shipping link. A Hermes hydrofoil ship left Sochi for Gagra. The
explosions in Gagra had no effect on traffic, the carrier said. On board the ship, alongside 30 passengers, there were representatives of the shipping company and journalists. Fifty five minutes after departure all safely disembarked in Abkhazia.
Georgia, which earlier warned that any shipping links established
without its consent, would be regarded as encroachments on its sovereignty and violation of international rules, created no hindrances.
In a similar situation in 2004 President Mikhail Saakashvili ordered opening fire and drowning all vessels that might try to approach Abkhazia without Tbilisi's permission.
Last week Saakashvili told the German daily Die Welt in an interview "Russian intrusion" into Abkhazia must be stopped, because tomorrow the same might happen to Ukraine, the Baltic States and Poland.
The Georgian leader claims that at stake there is the entire regime of European security that took shape after the 'cold war.'
The Georgian president accused Moscow of an intention to annex
Abkhazia. Saakashvili claimed that such a decision had been made by Russia' s previous President Vladimir Putin, adding it remained to be seen what kind of attitude Russia's current president, Dmitry Medvedev, would take.
In April, France and Germany in fact blocked Georgia's attempts to
join the NATO Membership Action Plan. At the closing news conference after a NATO summit Chancellor Angela Merkel said openly for the first time that Georgia would be unable to join NATO until it achieved success at negotiations with Russia over Abkhazia.
Germany also refused to support Georgia's demand for the removal of Russian peacekeepers from Abkhazia.
"The things we are witnesses to in Abkhazia today are not a sensation. They fit in with the general context of negative trends, characteristic of the entire history of this conflict," Politcom.ru quotes the chief of the inter-ethnic relations department at the Institute of Military and Political Analysis, Sergei Markedonov, as saying.
The conflict, he believes, had remained frozen until 2006, but the
situation aggravated fundamentally after Kosovo.
"At this point one can say the current situation is that of an
unfrozen conflict. There are no negotiations, but there have been attempts to alter the law enforcement and legal space all around Abkhazia. In a situation like this many scenarios are possible. Not any, but many."
Alexandrova) -- Georgia's relations with its breakaway territory,
self-proclaimed republic of Abkhazia, are white-hot - explosions, border closure, verbal exchanges. In the meantime, there were rumors just recently about some secret plan for settling the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict that would split Abkhazia into Russian and Georgian spheres of influence. At the official level Moscow emphatically denied this.
Analysts believe that the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict has been
unfrozen attempts are now being made again by all parties to somehow
change the legal and law enforcement space around Abkhazia.
On July 1 Abkhazia declared it was closing its administrative border with Georgia. The measure followed a spate of explosions in Abkhazian localities over the last two days of June. There were four explosions in Sukhumi and Gagra. Twelve people were injured. The president of the self-proclaimed republic, Sergei Bagapash, blamed the blasts on Georgian secret services.
An assistant to the commander of the Collective Peace-Keeping Force, Alexander Diordiyev, for his part, said Georgian secret services were creating tensions in the zone of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict and bore the responsibility for provocations against the CIS peacekeepers. This statement followed shortly after an explosion occurred between a post of the Georgian state security ministry and peacekeepers' roadblock.
"The decision to close the border is a temporary measure. We wish to make the visiting holidaymakers and our own citizens secure from such things. We have no doubts that the latest explosions in Sukhumi and Gagra were staged by Georgian secret services," said Abkhazia's foreign minister, Sergei Shamba.
Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze responded the Abkhazian
authorities' decision to close the administrative border in the Gali
district was archaic.
"We shall certainly make a proportionate response, because these
destructive actions turn the position of people in the Gali district for the worse," Gurgenidze said.
After the breakup of the USSR Abkhazia, until then part of the
Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, proclaimed its independence. Georgia in August 1992 moved troops to Abkhazia only to meet with firm
resistance. The armed conflict, in which Georgia lost control of
Abkhazia, ended on August 30, 1993. Abkhazia has pressed for the official recognition of its independence ever since. Tbilisi keeps saying Abkhazia is part and parcel of Georgia and offers wide autonomy.
The latest incidents occurred against a backdrop of active discussions of Abkhazia's future. The Abkhazian president last week met with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow. The two men discussed the outlook for a resumption of the peace process between Georgia and Abkhazia.
The daily Kommersant then said that Bagapsh and Medvedev considered, among other things, Georgia's proposal for dividing Abkhazia into two zones of influence - a large Russian and small Georgian one - on the condition Georgia's sovereignty was formally restored to the entire territory.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphatically dismissed the
rumors Georgia and Russia were discussing a split of Abkhazia.
"This is a lie. It has nothing to do with the reality," the chief
Russian diplomat said.
Sukhumi declared it would never agree to such an arrangement.
"We shall never discuss any division of our territory into spheres of Georgian and Russian influence. Abkhazia is an independent state within very specific borders," the Abkhazian presidential representative in the Gali district, Ruslan Kishmaria, said.
However, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin has
confirmed after a meeting with his Georgian counterpart Grigol Vashadze "there is a certain set of ideas of how to bring about Georgian-Abkhazian settlement."
In the meantime, on Tuesday Russia and Abkhazia restored a regular
shipping link. A Hermes hydrofoil ship left Sochi for Gagra. The
explosions in Gagra had no effect on traffic, the carrier said. On board the ship, alongside 30 passengers, there were representatives of the shipping company and journalists. Fifty five minutes after departure all safely disembarked in Abkhazia.
Georgia, which earlier warned that any shipping links established
without its consent, would be regarded as encroachments on its sovereignty and violation of international rules, created no hindrances.
In a similar situation in 2004 President Mikhail Saakashvili ordered opening fire and drowning all vessels that might try to approach Abkhazia without Tbilisi's permission.
Last week Saakashvili told the German daily Die Welt in an interview "Russian intrusion" into Abkhazia must be stopped, because tomorrow the same might happen to Ukraine, the Baltic States and Poland.
The Georgian leader claims that at stake there is the entire regime of European security that took shape after the 'cold war.'
The Georgian president accused Moscow of an intention to annex
Abkhazia. Saakashvili claimed that such a decision had been made by Russia' s previous President Vladimir Putin, adding it remained to be seen what kind of attitude Russia's current president, Dmitry Medvedev, would take.
In April, France and Germany in fact blocked Georgia's attempts to
join the NATO Membership Action Plan. At the closing news conference after a NATO summit Chancellor Angela Merkel said openly for the first time that Georgia would be unable to join NATO until it achieved success at negotiations with Russia over Abkhazia.
Germany also refused to support Georgia's demand for the removal of Russian peacekeepers from Abkhazia.
"The things we are witnesses to in Abkhazia today are not a sensation. They fit in with the general context of negative trends, characteristic of the entire history of this conflict," Politcom.ru quotes the chief of the inter-ethnic relations department at the Institute of Military and Political Analysis, Sergei Markedonov, as saying.
The conflict, he believes, had remained frozen until 2006, but the
situation aggravated fundamentally after Kosovo.
"At this point one can say the current situation is that of an
unfrozen conflict. There are no negotiations, but there have been attempts to alter the law enforcement and legal space all around Abkhazia. In a situation like this many scenarios are possible. Not any, but many."
