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Vladimir Socor in EDM: Abkhaz Stalling Talks with Tbilisi

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  • Vladimir Socor in EDM: Abkhaz Stalling Talks with Tbilisi

    ABKHAZ RHETORIC CALCULATED TO STALL TALKS WITH TBILISI
    by Vladimir Socor

    Eurasia Daily Monitor -- The Jamestown Foundation
    Thursday, July 28, 2005 -- Volume 2, Issue 146

    Abkhaz authorities are derailing political talks with Tbilisi,
    ostensibly in protest against Georgian actions in a July 3 maritime
    incident and in its wake. On that day, Georgia's coast guard stopped
    a Turkish cargo vessel off Pitsunda en route to an Abkhaz port,
    impounded the ship and its cargo in Poti, and detained the crew of
    eight. The crew -- mostly Turks of Abkhaz descent -- were released
    and deported to Turkey on July 20, except the captain. On July 27,
    a Poti court sentenced the captain to four years imprisonment for
    violating Georgia's territorial waters and international shipping
    rules. The commercial cargo will be delivered to Abkhazia's populace
    as a gift from Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili.

    Tbilisi is acting on the international legal premise that there are
    no territorial waters or maritime borders, other than the Georgian
    one in this sector. Georgia will continue to detain ships bound for
    Abkhazia that trespass Georgia's territorial waters without permission
    or otherwise violate international law. This is a universal obligation
    for states, including Georgia.

    The Abkhaz authorities, however, take the position that Abkhazia
    has territorial waters and a maritime border. On July 23, Abkhaz de
    facto president Sergei Bagapsh warned that "Abkhaz forces" would sink
    Georgian ships if they enter Abkhazia's waters. Abkhaz authorities
    have abducted 12 Georgians in Abkhaz-controlled territory and offered
    to release them in a deal for the release of the Turkish captain.
    After this abduction, it was Bagapsh again who accused Georgia of
    engaging in "piracy at sea," which he said was incompatible with
    holding political talks.

    Seemingly in further retaliation, Bagapsh threatened the possible
    confiscation of property in Abkhazia belonging to ethnic Georgians,
    presumably in absentia. That property would be inventoried and sold at
    auctions, he warned. The announcement singled out ethnic Georgians,
    inferentially suggesting that property belonging to members of other
    ethnic groups is not subject to such measures.

    On July 26, Bagapsh and his visiting South Ossetian counterpart Eduard
    Kokoiti signed a joint communique insisting that Georgian-Abkhaz and
    Georgian-South Ossetian negotiations must continue "in the framework
    of existing formats," and on an equal footing between the central
    government and Sukhumi and Tskhinvali, respectively. Moreover,
    "Russia's peacekeeping and mediating role remains the main guarantor
    of peace and stability in the Caucasus," they insisted. The joint
    communique appears designed to discourage international attempts,
    however feeble, to transcend those decade-old, Russia-constructed
    formats.

    In a July 23 letter to the UN Security Council, Abkhazia's self-styled
    minister of foreign affairs, Sergei Shamba, complained against Georgian
    seizure of "the few commercial ships bound for Abkhazia," omitting to
    mention international law in the complaint. This seemed designed as
    an excuse for Sukhumi's refusal to attend a UN-brokered meeting with
    Georgian officials in Tbilisi on the previous day (see below). In
    the same letter, Shamba called for UN support to the signing of a
    "peace treaty between Georgia and Abkhazia, to be guaranteed by all
    participants in the negotiating process." This old proposal tends
    to resurface periodically with some variations. It aims to obtain
    Georgian recognition of Abkhazia's secession and international
    recognition of Abkhazia.

    The July 22 meeting in Tbilisi was attended by representatives of the
    UN Secretary General's Group of Georgia's Friends, on the UN Observer
    Mission's (UNOMIG) premises. Georgia's chief negotiator on Abkhazia,
    Irakli Alasania, presented the Georgian side's draft of a joint
    Georgian-Abkhaz statement, including provisions on non-resumption of
    hostilities, security guarantees for returning refugees, and maritime
    issues. While declining to attend this meeting within the multilateral
    "Geneva process," the Abkhaz side declared its allegiance to the
    "Sochi process" of negotiations, in which Georgia is alone facing a
    common front of Russia and Abkhazia. In these circumstances, Tbilisi
    would be right to try to engage the Abkhaz directly, in an informal,
    unmediated dialogue.

    (Imedi TV, Rustavi-2 TV, July 22; Apsynpress, July 23, 26;
    Kavkasia-Press, July 26, 27; Prime-News, July 27)

    --Vladimir Socor
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