New UN Envoy Visits Abkhazia
The newly appointed UN Secretary General’s Special Representative in Georgia, French diplomat Jean Arnault, met with breakaway Abkhaz Foreign Minister Sergey Shamba in Sokhumi on August 28, Apsnipress news agency reported.
According to the Abkhaz news agency, Arnault said after talks that the way out of the current deadlock in the conflict resolution process is a political dialogue between the sides.
The situation in the Georgian-controlled upper Kodori Gorge is one of the major causes of the current standoff between Tbilisi and Sokhumi. The Georgian side has boosted its official presence in the gorge since late July after cracking down on a local rebel militia group there.
The Abkhaz and Russian sides claim that Georgia has troops stationed in the gorge in violation of the major cease-fire agreement.
“If we fail to solve the situation in Kodori Gorge, it will influence the possibility of resuming the negotiating process… The resolution of the problem involving Kodori Gorge will show whether the Georgian side is willing or not to return to the frames of existing agreements, which envisage the demilitarization of Kodori Gorge,” Sergey Shamba, the Foreign Minister of breakaway Abkhazia, said after talks with the UN envoy.
