German FM to visit Georgia for talks, to meet Abkhazian leaders

TBILISI, July 17 (Itar-Tass) - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter
Steinmeier will arrive for a two-day visit in Georgia on Thursday. He will discuss the settlement of the Abkhazian conflict within Georgia's
internationally recognized borders.

The Georgian Foreign Ministry reports that the German foreign minister
will meet his Georgian opposite number Eka Tkeshelashvili in Tbilisi and
will hold talks with President Mikhail Saakashvili in Batumi.

The report also says that on July 18 Frank-Walter Steinmeier will
visit Sukhumi to meet Abkhazia's authorities de facto. He will return to
Batumi the same day.

German Foreign Ministry's Special Envoy for Caucasus Hans-Dieter Lucas
visited Georgia on July 12-14 to prepare Steinmeier's visit. In Tbilisi,
Lucas met Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili, the State Minister
for Re-Integration Temur Yakobashvili and representatives of the Georgian
Security Council. On July 14, Lucas visited Sukhumi to meet the head of
Abkhazia Sergei Bagapsh.

After the trip Lucas said that its main task was to get first-hand
information about the situation in the region and to discuss a
step-by-step settlement of the conflict. He noted that the U.N.
Secretary-General's Group of Friends for Georgia (the United States,
Russia, Germany, France and Britain - Itar-Tass) had drafted a plan on
stage-by-stage settlement of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict.

The first stage provides for solving all problems that create tensions
between the parties, the second stage provides for the solution of
security issues. They the sides could get down to considering a refugee
issue and prospect for their return to their homes as well as the region's
economic revival.

"The whole process should be accompanied by restoration of trust
between the parties and their direct dialogue. The final stage of
settlement may involve political issues (Abkhazia's status as part of
Georgia - Itar-Tass)," Hans-Dieter Lucas said.

In the meantime, Georgia wants the Collective Peacekeeping Force to be
withdrawn from Abkhazia but Kakha Lomaya, the secretary of the Georgian
Security Council, said on Wednesday that Georgia wouldn't push for this
decision.

"The Georgian authorities are ready to pass a decision on the
Collective Peacekeeping Force withdrawal but we are not rushing to adopt
such a document," Lomaya said in a live interview with the Rustavi-2
television company.

"We will pass this decision when the country's leadership decides to
take this step as part of overall measures aimed at settling the
conflict," he went on to say, adding that a diplomatic solution to the
conflict was a more preferable option.
On July 11, the Georgian parliament adopted an appeal to international
organizations and the parliaments of partner countries in which it asks
the world community to back up Tbilisi's peace initiatives for settling
the conflict. They provide for changing the format of peacekeeping
operations in conflict zones and replacing the Collective Peacekeeping
Force by international police forces. Otherwise, the Georgian side will
have to pass legal decisions for declaring as illegitimate the presence of
Russian army units in conflict zones in the territory of Georgia and for
their pullout from the country's territory.
The Collective Peacekeeping Force is staffed with Russian peacekeeping
units. They've been stationed in the zone of the Georgian-Abkhazian
conflict since 1994. The Collective Peacekeeping Force units serve in
the Abkhazia-controlled Gali district as well as in the Georgia-controlled
Zugdidi and Tsalendzhikhskiy districts.