Tbilisi Awaits Georgia-Russian Top Level Talks Before Taking Decision on Peacekeepers

Russia’s role of impartial mediator and peacekeeper is already undermined and Georgia now only has “to formalize” it through official decision to demand Russian peacekeepers’ withdrawal, Alexander Lomaia, secretary of the Georgian National Security Council, said.

In remarks aired by the Mze TV on May 28, Lomaia, however, also said that Tbilisi would wait for a meeting between President Saakashvili and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, in St. Petersburg in early June, before taking any decision.

“We take into consideration that there is a new president in Russia,” he said. “President Saakashvili’s message aimed at giving opportunity to him [Dmitry Medvedev] to fundamentally revise [Russia’s] approach to Georgia.”

Meanwhile, Nika Rurua, who is deputy chairman of the defense and security committee in the outgoing parliament, said that Tbilisi would declare Russian peacekeeping troops in Abkhazia as “occupation forces” if Moscow refused to agree on change of peacekeeping format.
 
Temur Iakobashvili, the Georgian state minister for reintegration, said on May 28 that Tbilisi was proposing change of the current Russian-led military peacekeeping operation in the Abkhaz conflict zone with the international-led police operation.

“It should be a joint Georgian and Abkhaz police force, which will be trained and managed from certain period of time by international police force,” he said. “This international police force should involve, as we see it, mainly the European states and I want to stress here that we consider Russia as European state as well. The most desired format would be if this operation is carried out under the aegis of OSCE.”

Iakobashvili also said that Tbilisi would not sign binding treaty on non-use of force unless the process of return of internally displaced persons and refuges was not launched in Abkhazia.