Tbilisi, Moscow to Negotiate Details of Bases’ Withdrawal in May
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that “significant progress” has been made in talks over withdrawal of Russian military bases from Georgia during the negotiations with Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili on Monday in Moscow. Georgian Foreign Minister expressed optimism but noted that “details” still need to be negotiated.
“The withdrawal will be carried out gradually and if an agreement is reached, it [bases’ pullout] may start this year,” Sergey Lavrov said at a news conference after talks with Salome Zourabichvili. “We have made a significant progress and moved our position over the timeframe and withdrawal from Georgia closer,” he added.
Sergey Lavrov said the sides agreed that “the bases will be pulled out in the near future,” but did not elaborate further.
Salome Zourabichvili also expressed optimism, but noted citing an old saying “the devil is in the details” hinting that some issues still remain to be negotiated. “We agreed that we have to continue intensive work over details [of the withdrawal process]… We give a week to experts [to work over these details]. After an [Orthodox] Easter [on May 1] we will evaluate agreements reached [by the experts],” she said.
“Georgia looks with optimism to this process,” Salome Zourabichvili added.
She has been focusing on “details of withdrawal process” from the very beginning of April 25 talks in Moscow. She told Interfax news agency ahead of negotiations that “more important for the Georgian side than the issue of a timeframe – although the timeframe is not less important [sic] – is an agreement by the sides over all the elements of the withdrawal process,” she said, without any elaboration.
These elements are likely to refer to the Georgian demands that after the agreement on withdrawal Russian bases conduct no live-fire trainings and there are no attempts to increase or rotate the personnel. Other “devilish” details publicized earlier referred to the Russian demand of including a clause in Russo-Georgian Framework Agreement that would ban stationing of the foreign military bases on the Georgian soil. This provision however, is likely to have been dropped as Georgia vehemently objected to linking of the issue of the bases to the wider Russo-Georgian framework agreement.
Zourabichvili also said that Georgia will agree on January 1, 2008 as a deadline for the closure of the two Russian military bases stationed in Batumi and Akhalkalaki.
Negotiations between Tbilisi and Moscow over withdrawal of Russian military bases from Batumi in Adjara Autonomous Republic and Akhalkalaki, south western part of Georgia, are deadlocked for five years already.
According to the Russian sources there are about 2,500 servicemen, 74 tanks, 80 infantry combat vehicles and 120 artillery cannons stationed in 12th Russian military base in Batumi; and about 2,000 servicemen, 40 tanks, 130 infantry combat and armored vehicles and up to 50 artillery cannons stationed in 62nd Russian military base in Akhalkalaki.
But Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said in his recent interview with the EurasiaNet that he believed these figures are inflated.
