During his visit to Georgia, U.S. Senator Richard Lugar twice reiterated that Washington is not in favor of having Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, boosting Tbilisi’s hopes for more international support in its drive to internationalize the currently Russian-led peacekeeping forces in the conflict zones.
Senator Richard Lugar, Republican chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, visited Georgia on August 22-24 as part of a trip following the route of Central Asian oil through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.
Speaking at a news conference after talks with Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli on August 22, the U.S. Senator said the United States “agrees with people of Georgia there should not be Russian peacekeepers” in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
“I think the peacekeeping situation is one that really has to be assumed by the people of Georgia; we’ll not be in favor of having Russians there …. the diplomacy may lead to other more neutral and friendly parties providing peacekeeping in that situation,” Senator Lugar said.
The next day, while visiting biological facilities operated under the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (CTRP) in Tbilisi, Lugar reiterated that Russian peacekeeping forces should be replaced with international forces. CTRP, also known as the Nunn-Lugar Act, provides U.S. funding and expertise to help nations safeguard and dismantle nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
On July 18 the Georgian Parliament passed a resolution instructing the government to launch relevant procedures in order to immediately suspend, as the document reads, “the so-called peacekeeping operations” in breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Georgian officials have already hailed the U.S. Senator’s statement as a positive sign. Deputy Foreign Minister Valery Chechelashvili said on August 23 that it is “a serious success and a hopeful factor.”
“This is a very important statement and a sign of enormous support towards Georgia. Russian peacekeepers should leave the conflict zone; at the same time we are working to replace them with a neutral peacekeeping operation,” influential parliamentarian from the ruling National Movement party Giga Bokeria said on August 23.
Deputy Chairman of the Georgian Parliamentary Committee for Defense and Security Nika Rurua said that Richard Lugar is an influential Senator whose statement can be regarded as an official position of Washington.
Meanwhile, the Georgian Foreign Ministry has said that it is currently working on a document to follow up on Parliament’s July 18 resolution by analyzing the treaties that serve as the legal basis for the current peacekeeping operations in the conflict zones. Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili said that the conclusions will be ready this autumn.
While in Georgia, Senator Lugar also said that the United States supports the return of displaced persons to Abkhazia and although there has been no particular progress in this regard, Washington and Tbilisi are patient and looking forward to better results.
“We’ve worked, we believe constructively, with Georgians on potential diplomatic solutions even though these have not been particularly successful so far,” the U.S. Senator said.
Energy-related issues were also in the focus of the U.S. Senator’s visit, and he said that he discussed problems posed by Georgia’s dependency on Russian gas with the Georgian leadership. “It is obviously a very difficult situation,” he said on August 22.
