Saakashvili: Tbilisi to Lay Out New Abkhaz Proposals
The Georgian side will outline new proposals on the Abkhaz conflict early next week, President Saakashvili said after talks with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York on March 18.
Speaking on Georgian TV, Saakashvili also said that he had told the UN secretary general that he was “not satisfied” with both the Russian peacekeeping forces stationed in the Abkhaz conflict zone under CIS aegis and the UN’s failure to facilitate the return of internally displaced persons.
Below are Saakashvili’s remarks on the matter:
“We explained to the secretary general in detail that we are not satisfied with the current situation in respect of the CIS peacekeeping operation, because after Russia’s unilateral decision to lift sanctions on Abkhazia this [peacekeeping] operation remains without any legal grounds and is counterproductive. And the UN itself has failed to fulfill its duties, because what the UN along with the CIS peacekeeping operation should have done – facilitation of the return of internally displace persons – is actually in standstill.
So we need a total revision of the [peacekeeping] format and it is good that the UN has accepted it and beyond that we also demand to set up an independent commission, which without any postponement and without any bureaucratic delays, will in the nearest future elaborate concrete recommendations on how to facilitate the return of displaced people and on how to resolve the conflict in keeping with Georgia’s territorial integrity.
At the same time, in the next few days, we will propose very important initiatives about what we are offering to the Abkhaz and what we are offering to residents of the conflict zone and those who have to return to Abkhazia.
We had consultations with various political parties, with various groups both outside and within the country, and early next week we will lay out our additional, new, very important and radical proposals.
We want those issues to be resolved peacefully. We are offering very peaceful proposals to the conflicting sides and we expect from them [the Abkhaz side] the resumption of dialogue on all the issues.”
