Sokhumi to Resume Talks if Tbilisi Pulls Out Troops

Foreign Minister of breakaway Abkhazia Sergey Shamba said Sokhumi will resume talks with Tbilisi only after the Georgian side pulls out its troops from upper Kodori Gorge.

Shamba said in an interview with the Russian daily Vremya Novostei, published on August 31, that UN Secretary General?s Special Representative to Georgia Jean Arnault, who visited Sokhumi recently, offered the Abkhaz side to hold talks with Georgian State Minister for Conflict Resolution Issues Merab Antadze in September.

?Talks can only resume if Georgia follows its commitments [under the 1994 agreement, which bans the presence of troops in upper Kodori Gorge]? The real actions of Tbilisi demonstrate the absence of willingness on the Georgian side to hold talks. If there is a readiness to discuss the withdrawal of troops from Kodori, we are ready to [hold talks], otherwise there is no reason for this meeting,? Shamba said.

He also said that Tbilisi’s insistence to allow the monitoring of upper Kodori Gorge by UN observers only, without Russian peacekeepers, demonstrates the Georgian side?s intention to change the current peace format in the conflict zone, which is inadmissible to the Abkhaz side.

Shamba noted that Tbilisi?s plan to relocate the ?so called Abkhaz government-in-exile? in upper Kodori Gorge ?is a challenge aimed at thwarting the negotiating process, which will be adequately responded to by us.?

?When talks stop, other mechanisms come into play. We are not naive and political idiots to hold talks with the provocateurs who are going to be stationed in Kodori gorge [referring the Abkhaz government-in-exile],? Shamba said.

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