Arranging a UN-led monitoring of upper Kodori Gorge without the involvement of Russian peacekeepers, while speeding up rehabilitation works currently underway in the area, are now the top priorities of the government regarding the strategic gorge in breakaway Abkhazia.
Tbilisi is strongly against Russian peacekeepers taking part in the monitoring of upper Kodori Gorge, Georgian officials told foreign diplomats during the meeting on August 15.
Manjgaladze, along with the Deputy Interior Minister, Deputy Defense Minister, and the State Minister for Conflict Resolution Issues met with foreign diplomats accredited in Georgia and briefed them about Tbilisi’s position and the current situation in upper Kodori Gorge.
The Georgian side says it has a legal right to deny the participation of Russian peacekeepers in monitoring upper Kodori Gorge based on a provision of the 1994 Moscow agreement on cease-fire and separation of forces between the Georgian and Abkhaz sides, which reads: “The movement of units and subunits of the peacekeeping force and of the international observers outside the security zone in the relevant areas shall be subject to agreement with the parties.”
Kodori Gorge is outside of the ‘security zone,’ which lies across the southern part of administrative border between breakaway Abkhazia and rest of Georgia.
The Georgian side is also citing “moral considerations” behind its refusal. The Georgian Foreign Ministry said local residents of Kodori gorge consider Russian peacekeepers “to be aggressors and supporters of the separatist regime.”
“[The Georgian side] is against the involvement of Russian peacekeepers in the monitoring, because we think that they are not impartial and fail to perform their duties,” Deputy Defense Minister Mamuka Kudava told reporters following the meeting with foreign diplomats.
But the 1994 Moscow agreement also reads that “A regular patrol of the peacekeeping force and international observers shall be organized concurrently in the Kodori valley.” The provision is cited by the Russian and Abkhaz sides, both of which insist on the Russian peacekeepers’ involvement in the monitoring group.
Meanwhile, President Saakashvili convened an emergency government session on August 15, where he instructed his ministers to speed up the rehabilitation of the gorge and to set up major infrastructure there before October.
He charged Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili to oversee the process, in coordination with the Abkhaz government-in-exile, and tasked the government to establish “a new small town” in Kodori Gorge.
“You [referring to Merabishvili] should build an airport in three weeks and a town – in a month,” Saakashvili said.
“I do not like the [current] momentum of the rehabilitation [process in Kodori]. We should gain more impetus… We do not have much time… in a month and a half we should create new infrastructure in Kodori… This would serve as a lesson for everyone, including the separatists, and would show Abkhazia that we can do in a month what they have been unable to do for 11 years,” Saakashvili said.
