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Georgia Proposes New Abkhazia Solution
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili held an unscheduled meeting of the Georgian National Security Council on Saturday to initiate the development of a new set of measures for the settlement of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict. According to a source in the Georgian presidential press service, the president's plan includes broad autonomy for the territory, its right to veto federal decision concerning it, the reservation of a vice president's post for a representative of Abkhazia, protection for the Abkhazian language and culture and the formation of joint Georgian-Abkhazian monitoring in the conflict zone.
In addition to those proposals, which are not new, the president proposed a number of economic incentives. They include economic free zones in the Ochamchir and Gal districts and “maximally full customs autonomy in the Abkhazia region.” The Georgian Ministry of Economic Development told Kommersant that that implied leaving almost all customs duties and taxes collected in the regional budget. The new proposals are in essence a response to Moscow's joint efforts with Sukhumi to integrate Abkhazia into the Russian economic and social system.
In Sukhumi, response to the new Georgian plan was cool. “Sukhumi will not consider Tbilisi's proposal for broad autonomy,” Abkhazian Foreign Minister Sergey Shamba told Kommersant. He said that “Georgia's fulfillment of all the obligations it has taken on, first of all the withdrawal of forces from Kodor Gorge” is a condition for negotiations with Tbilisi.
Observers suggest that the new proposals are not so much intended to renew a dialog with Sukhumi as to they are part of preparations to receive a NATO Membership Action Plan meant to show Georgia's peaceful intentions for the settlement of the conflict. They also see a veiled threat in the proposal to form a Georgian-Abkhazian monitoring force: If no compromise is found, Georgia may demand the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from the conflict zone.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 14, 2008
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