Saakashvili, Russian MPs Spar over Kosovo Question

President Saakashvili side stepped questions put by Russian lawmakers on whether Tbilisi would recognize the independence of Kosovo. Tbilisi?s response, he said, whatever it was, would not change anything.

Saakashvili was speaking at a discussion on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich on February 9. Other panelists included the presidents of Moldova and Macedonia, Vladimir Voronin and Branko Crvenkovski, respectively, and Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel.

Russian MP Aleksey Ostrovsky of the Liberal Democratic Party accused Georgia of double-standards, saying it wanted to restore its territorial integrity, and yet at the same time ?apparently supported its western partners in favor of Kosovo’s independence.? He asked the Georgian president what would be Tbilisi?s response if Kosovo declared independence.

Saakashvili replied: ?Kosovo [independence] is going to happen obviously ? let?s look very bluntly at it ? and it is going to happen this month. And it is not in the hands of Georgia now because the only country that ? maybe some other rogue states also consider ? but the only country that has seriously discussed the issue of recognizing Georgia?s separatist areas has been Russia. This is not a question to me; this is a question to you. I want to ask you very bluntly: are you willing to recognize Georgia?s separatist territories after Kosovo declares independence and [after] it is recognized by the west? Are you going to do it or not? At least in Duma [Russia?s lower house of Parliament]? You can tell it straight now. You do not have to ask me, you are sitting here. Are going to do that in two weeks; because it is going to happen soon.?

?Mr. President, Russia is the only country, which calls for Serbia?s territorial integrity and Russia is the only country, which does not support separatist feelings,? the Russian lawmaker responded. ?But you have not answered my question: why do you have differences in your approaches? No matter who was bombing whom; no matter that Abkhazians turned out to be stronger than Georgians [referring to the early 90s when Georgian troops were forced out of Abkhazia] ? this is history; what matters is that you have different approaches to similar issues.?

Saakashvili, however, continued to insist on an answer to his question: ?But are you supporting only the territorial integrity of Serbia, or also the territorial integrity of Georgia; that?s what I want to know. That is the question now, right??

Then another Russian MP, Konstantin Kosachev, intervened: ?Mr. President, the question was: whether Georgia supports the territorial integrity of Serbia and whether Georgia is going to recognize Kosovo? Could you answer that question first? Because that is the first event to happen.?

?No, no, no; look, whether Georgia supports it or not, it is not going to change anything,? Saakashvili responded. ?Whether Russia supports the recognition of separatist [territories in Georgia] is changing everything in our region ? for Russia, for Georgia and for the world. That is why I am more interested right now in your opinion [referring to the Russian lawmaker] than in our very theoretical approaches. That?s what really matters, because it is you who have the ball in your court now. Are you going to blow up the region, or you are not? That?s what I am basically asking now, because you can do it with your explosives.?

Then Ostrovsky posed another question, asking the Georgian leader whether he respected or not the opinions of the Abkhaz and South Ossetian peoples, who, he said, had given ?their 100% support? to independence in referenda in both breakaway regions.

?Absolutely,? Saakashvili shot back, ?just as I respect the opinion of 85% of the population thrown out from there [referring to internally displaced persons] because they did not share that opinion.?

Saakashvili then returned to his original question: ?I am not arguing, I am just asking a straight question: are you going to do that [recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia]; what are your plans? Because it is not theoretic, it is coming now. And everybody, I guess, is interested, and on behalf of my people I have a right to ask it, right??

At this stage, the moderator interrupted, saying: ?I think you can see now how important all these challenges are.?

On the same day, on February 9, President Saakashvili addressed the Munich conference, arguing that Kosovo was ?sui generis because of moral, legal, and historic reasons? and it and the conflicts in Georgia were ?polar opposites.?

?Let me be clear?Georgia has never been against the resolution of the Kosovo situation. Our concern lies rather with the how,? he said. ?While the Kosovars were the victims of brutal ethnic cleansing that was halted by international military intervention, the separatists in Abkhazia were the victors of ethnic cleansing. And no one intervened to save the hundreds of thousands who today remain cleansed from their homeland due to their ethnicity.?

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