State Minister Bakradze to Visit Sokhumi

Davit Bakradze, the Georgian state minister for conflict resolution issues, will hold talks with Abkhaz Foreign Minister Sergey Shamba in the breakaway region?s capital of Sokhumi on October 25.

?This will be a one-day working visit,? Bakradze told reporters in Tbilisi on October 24. ?We have always said we were ready for direct dialogue with the Abkhaz side.?

The meeting will take place in the UN mission?s office in Sokhumi and will also be attended by the UN Secretary General?s Special Representative to Georgia, Jean Arnault.

The visit will mark an end to a long pause in bilateral contacts between senior Georgian and Abkhaz officials.

Talks between Sokhumi and Tbilisi were suspended more than a year ago. Sokhumi had linked the resumption of dialogue to preconditions, such as the withdrawal of Georgian forces and the Tbilisi-backed Abkhaz government-in-exile from the Tbilisi-controlled upper Kodori Gorge in the breakaway region.

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