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TBILISI: Hearings On Abkhaz Railway Unveil Few Details

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  • TBILISI: Hearings On Abkhaz Railway Unveil Few Details

    HEARINGS ON ABKHAZ RAILWAY UNVEIL FEW DETAILS
    Nino Khutsidze, Civil Georgia

    Civil Georgia, Georgia
    May 30 2006

    Officials in Tbilisi are cautious about unveiling details of ongoing
    negotiations, involving the Georgian, Russian, Abkhaz and Armenian
    sides, regarding setting up of a consortium which will deal with
    multi-million project on rehabilitation of the Abkhaz section of
    Russo-Georgian railway.

    Chief of the state-run Georgian Railway company Irakli Ezugbaia
    informed lawmakers about the talks at a session of the Commission for
    Territorial Integrity. But no details of these hearings are known as
    the session was held beyond the closed doors.

    Abkhaz sources reported in early May that the Georgian, Abkhaz,
    Russian, and Armenian sides signed a protocol on establishing a
    consortium - the Black Sea Railways - which will rehabilitate the
    Abkhaz railway during the talks in Moscow on May 4. According to these
    reports the consortium will be an open joint stock company where the
    Abkhaz side will be represented as "a full-pledged party."

    But the Georgian officials have denied these reports.

    "There are no four parties. There are only two parties - Georgian
    and Russian. All the rest [the Abkhaz and Armenian sides] are only
    invited to participate in the working meetings," Irakli Ezugbaia told
    Civil Georgia on May 30 after the parliamentary commission hearing.

    "No decision has been made so far regarding the parties [in the
    consortium], because we are still working on mechanisms of setting
    up of this consortium. Final political decision will be presented
    only after this [work] is over," Ezugbaia said.

    He noted that the protocol signed in Moscow on May 4 is a document
    which reflects position of the sides regarding the issue.

    Ezugbaia also said that no agreement has been reached so far on
    how shares among the participating sides will be distributed in
    the consortium.

    "There are different positions among negotiating sides about this
    issue," Ezugbaia added.

    He also said that the consortium will most likely be registered in
    "one of the European states."

    Ezugbaia stressed that the Georgia will push participation of those
    Georgian experts in rehabilitation of the railway, who are internally
    displaced persons from Abkhazia.

    Parliamentarians participating in the commission hearings noted after
    the session that "no sufficient answers" were provided by the chief
    of the Georgian Railway.

    Ezugbaia said he is in charge of "the technical aspects" of the
    rehabilitation of the Abkhaz railway, which will cost roughly
    USD 200-300 million; hence he is not in a position to comment on
    "political aspects of the issues."

    MP Shota Malashkhia, who chairs the Commission for Territorial
    Integrity, said after the hearings that the issue related with the
    railway consortium is too complicated and "is like a big spider web
    of legal questions."

    "We can not see mechanisms of creation of this consortium; we can not
    see how the control over this consortium or investments will be carried
    out... All the lawmakers [attending the session] have an impression
    that the issue is not fully realized," MP Malashkhia told reporters.

    If implemented, the project will revive the Trans-Caucasus Railway,
    which stretched more than 2,300 kilometers during Soviet times,
    connecting Armenia and Georgian Black Sea ports with central Russia;
    the railway, which has been on hold since the conflict in the breakaway
    region in the early 90s, operated passenger services and handled more
    than 15 million tons of transit cargo per year.

    According to the public opinion survey commissioned by the
    International republican Institute this April 75% of 1500 surveyed
    citizens thought Georgia said that restoration of the Abkhaz railway
    will "better suit Georgian national interests."
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