Georgian Envoy Calls for UN-led Peace Operation in Abkhazia

In his letter to the UN Security Council sent on October 27, Georgia?s Ambassador to the UN Revaz Adamia said that the Russian-led peacekeeping operation has ?exhausted its potential? and called for the design of a full-scale international, UN-led peacekeeping operation in Abkhazia.

Ambassador Adamia notes that positive developments in respect of the Abkhaz conflict resolution were ?pretty much exhausted? at the UN-mediated fourth meeting between the Georgian and Abkhaz sides on security guarantees, which was held in August.

?That positive momentum was marred by a large-scale Abkhaz military exercise ? the largest in the post-war period. Most alarmingly, those exercises were held in the zone of responsibility of the Russian PKF, which, unlike UNOMIG, left the events without comment. Moreover, we have no doubt in our minds that financing and equipment for these exercises came from the Russian Federation,? the Georgian Ambassador says.

He described the Abkhaz side?s refusal to teach local Georgian youth in their native Georgian language in schools in the Gali district of the breakaway region as ?cultural genocide.? 

?Currently, teachers, who dare instruct in the Georgian language have been thrown out and the entire school curriculum is taught in Russian,? Revaz Adamia said.

He also noted that the Russian Federation continues to illegally maintain a military base in Gudauta, Abkhazia. ?Positions in the separatist governments are filled with people sent directly from the public jobs in the Russian Federation, from as far as Siberia; legal entities of the Russian Federation acquire property and land in the secessionist regions,? Adamia said, adding that Russia continues granting citizenship to residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

?We are witnessing? the trivial military annexation of part of Georgia by Russia, where these military units [Russian peacekeepers] are securing the borders of annexed territories,? the Georgian Ambassador says.

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