Tbilisi Ready for Talks with Sokhumi
In a statement issued on January 30, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili announced that the Georgian side is ready to resume negotiations with the Abkhaz side to peacefully solve the decade-old conflict.
This statement comes just five days after President Saakashvili said at the session of the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe on January 26 that the peace process in Abkhazia is currently impossible because the “Abkhazian side has left the negotiating table.”
In his Sunday statement Mikheil Saakashvili reiterated that Tbilisi is ready to grant ?broad autonomy? to Abkhazia and protect ?rights of all residents of all nationalities in Abkhazia.?
?The Georgian side will never tolerate attempts to legalize ethnic cleansing [in Abkhazia]. At the same time, the Georgian side is ready to resume talks over return of internally displaced persons in Abkhazia and over peaceful resolution of the conflict,? the statement reads.
