The Only Disastrous Decision
// The outcome of the talks about the situation in the Caucasus is clear
New negotiations in Geneva are doomed to fail
Today Geneva hosts the second round of negotiations for peace settlement in the zone of the Georgian-Ossetian and Georgian-Abkhaz conflicts. According to the information of Kommersant, at the Geneva meeting, Georgia intends to present Russia as the party interested in conflicts, and to demand replacement of the Russian peace-keeping contingent with an international one. Moscow, Sukhumi and Tskhinvali have already prepared a reciprocal answer.
The Geneva status
Late last week it was unclear whether the Abkhaz and South Ossetian delegations will take part in the Geneva negotiations. They insist on being given the status of full-right participants of the meeting. Georgia minds it, supported by EU representatives, who consider that such a status will mean official recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by the world community.
Nevertheless a compromise was reached, and yesterday delegations of Abkhazia and South Ossetia took off from Moscow for Geneva. Before going to Europe, Chief of South Ossetia’s Foreign Ministry Murat Dzhioyev said that South Ossetia will take part in the Geneva consultations “as a full-right participant.” His Abkhaz counterpart Sergey Shamba made a similar statement, “Unlike the previous meeting, Abkhazia has been invited as a full-right participant, and although we expect nothing else than exchange of opinions, our full participation is an important fact itself.”
However, Mr Shamba did not go to Geneva, referring to the fact that “Georgia sends only its Deputy Foreign Minister to the negotiations.” The question of the Abkhaz and South Ossetian delegations’ status became the stumbling block at the previous negotiations in mid-October, prompting their failure. This time representatives of Sukhumi and Tskhinvali said before taking off for Geneva, “Europeans understood that without the participation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia negotiations are pointless.”
However, yesterday it turned out that the participants of the meeting have opposite views regarding the status of the delegations invited to Geneva. Unlike Abkhazia and South Ossetia’s representatives, Georgia’s State Minister for Reintegration Temur Iakobashvili argued that “the official status of the Abkhaz and South Ossetian delegations in Geneva is out of the question.” “In fact, the Abkhaz delegation will not have even the status it possessed last time, which is the representative of a conflict party,” Mr Iakobashvili told Kommersant. “The present meeting is purely technical; Abkhazia and South Ossetia have been invited as experts. The administrations of Sanakoyev and Akishbay (alternative pro-Georgian administrations of Abkhazia and South Ossetia –Kommersant) have the same status. Three states participate in official negotiations — the U.S., Russia and Georgia, as well as the EU, the UN and the OSCE.”
The Georgian Government’s position coincides with the European one in many respects. Last week French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who toured Georgia, dropped a hint that representatives of South Ossetia and Abkhazia will be invited to the Geneva meeting “not as official representatives of independent republics.”
According to the information of Kommersant, in Geneva there will be two working groups, one of which will discuss security issues in the region, and the other — refugees’ returning to the conflict zones. Abkhazia and South Ossetia’s delegations will take part in the meetings of these two groups. However, representatives of these delegations are unlikely to be admitted to the plenary session, where important decisions will be made.
Russia has already prepared its answer to such developments. Representatives of the Russian Foreign Office told Kommersant that “Moscow’s position remains the same as in the first round of negotiations: the Russian delegation will attend only those meetings, where representatives of Abkhazia and South Ossetia will be admitted. We will not take part in other meetings, including the plenary session, unless the Abkhaz and South Ossetian delegations are admitted, and, accordingly, we will not be bound by the decisions adopted at such meetings.”
It means that negotiations in Geneva are doomed to fail. Europeans cannot recognize the official status of the South Ossetian and Abkhaz delegations, without which the decisions made in Geneva will not be valid, since Russia will not ratify them.
The Geneva strategy
In this case Russia will have an advantage, even more so given Georgia’s initiatives, which Tbilisi is going to put forward in Geneva. According to the information of Kommersant, Tbilisi will urge complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia and replacement of the Russian military contingent with an international one. “Only resolving this question, we can discuss refugees’ returning,” a source in Georgia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Kommersant. “After all, Russia’s troops cannot guarantee security of Georgian citizens in the conflict zone.”
Georgia believes that European representatives will back this requirement at the Geneva meeting. According to the information of Kommersant, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili discussed this matter in Paris last week. He warned the EU against resuming relations with Russia, “pretending as though nothing had happened.” And France’s President Nikolas Sarkozy stated during the EU-Russia summit in Nice, “I had an opportunity to tell Mr Medvedev that it is necessary to achieve progress in withdrawing Russian troops from Akhalgori and Perevi, outside South Ossetia.” In other words, the French President sent a clear message that, despite the aspiration to improve relations with Russia, Europeans are not going to turn a blind eye to the presence of Russia’s military men in the Georgian territory.
Amnesty International’s investigation results can give Georgia an advantage too. “A new twilight zone has been created along the de facto border between South Ossetia and the rest of Georgia, into which people stray at their peril,” the report reads. “Looting, shooting, explosions and abductions have all been reported in the last few weeks.” The report presents Russia as a conflict party. “The Georgians and the Russians have accused each other of war crimes for their conduct during the conflict. As the war recedes, Amnesty international is calling for the parties to the conflict to investigate all allegations thoroughly, impartially, and to bring those responsible to justice,” said Nicola Duckworth, Amnesty’s Europe and Central Asia program director. “International monitors must be allowed to go to all places and all sides need to intensify their efforts to guarantee the safe return of displaced people without discrimination,” he added.
However, Russia seems unlikely to fulfill this requirement, because European monitors’ unlimited moving throughout the conflict zone will mean the beginning of replacement of the Russian contingent with an international one. Yesterday the Abkhaz party made rather a tough statement concerning the European Union. “The armed incident in the Gal area last Saturday showed that EU monitors take part in armed provocations, organized by the Georgian party,” representative of the Abkhaz President in the Gal area Ruslan Kishmariya said. “Georgian armed units entered the territory of Abkhazia with EU monitors. What right did they have to do it?”
Last Saturday there was a skirmish near the village of Pakhulani, on border of Abkhazia and Georgia, with a Georgian law enforcement officer killed. Later, when representatives of the EU mission in Georgia tried to enter Pakhulani, they were fired at, too. Yesterday it was officially confirmed by representatives of the EU mission. In response, Abkhaz President Sergey Bagapsh, who is in Moscow, reminded that the responsibilities of the EU mission in Georgia do not extend to the territory of Abkhazia, and called EU monitors’ stay in Abkhazia without Sukhumi’s authorizing inadmissible.
This said, Abkhazia has already prepared its answer to the initiative to replace the Russian contingent with an international one. South Ossetia fully agrees with it: ahead of the Geneva meeting, representative of South Ossetia’s President Dmitry Medoyev stated that European monitors do not cope with their functions and are unable to control the situation in the conflict zone.
Olga Allenova, Alexander Gabuyev; Georgy Dvali, Tbilisi
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 18, 2008
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