UN Envoy Comments on Russian Peacekeepers
UN Secretary General?s Special Representative to Georgia Heidi Tagliavini said on June 22 that Russian peacekeeping forces stationed in Abkhazia play an important role in preventing escalation of tensions in the conflict zone.
?Under current conditions, the presence of peacekeepers and UN Observer Mission in the conflict zone is the only deterrent factor to prevent the situation to spiral out of control,? she said at a news conference in Tbilisi, which was her last in a capacity of the UN secretary General?s representative to Georgia.
Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, who has served in Georgia since 2002, will be leaving Georgia soon and will continue her diplomatic career in another capacity in Switzerland.
She described resumption of the Georgian-Abkhaz Coordinating Council in May as one of the major progress made in recent years in the Abkhaz conflict resolution process.
Tagliavini also said that not a single conflict had ever been settled without a political decision and both the Georgian and Abkhaz sides understand it well.
She also said that much is still to be done in terms of confidence building, security guarantees and final resolution of the conflict.
