Saakashvili Wants Status Quo Ante in Conflict Regions

President Saakashvili expressed the hope that by October 10, after Russian forces have pulled out from Georgia, the pre-conflict status quo ante would be restored.

“What we clearly expect to get by October 10 is the status quo ante prior to August 7,” Saakashvili said on September 30. “The status quo ante certainly means going back to previous positions controlled then by so-called Russian peacekeepers both in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and to the positions controlled by the de facto separatist authorities in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.”

Saakashvili was speaking at a joint press conference after talks with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Tbilisi.

He also said that the EU mission, which starts operating from October 1, “has a clear mandate that covers the whole territory of Georgia including the areas not presently under Georgia’s control.”

Saakashvili said after the completion of the first stage, which envisages the replacement of Russian forces by the EU monitors in the so-called buffer zones, the next stage should see the full withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgia. 
 
“The next stage is the return of IDPs in secure and dignified conditions, getting internationalization of the process, getting Russians out of Georgian territory because these are right now territories occupied by a foreign military power against the will of the government of a sovereign, independent country,” Saakashvili said. “This is very unusual, very irregular situation for us, for the European Union and for the world community.”

Moscow has said that it does not intend to pull out its forces from South Ossetia or Abkhazia. On September 30 it said that EU monitors would not have immediate access to the so-called “security zone” inside Georgia.

“From tomorrow, representatives of the European Union will begin conducting monitoring up to the southern borders of the security zone,” Reuters quoted Vitaly Manushko, a Russian peacekeeper spokesman, as saying.

Solana said that position was in contradiction to Russian commitments.

He reiterated that the European Union had already met its commitments under the ceasefire agreement and urged other parties to do the same. He said that the deployment of EU monitors would start from October 1. 

“However, it does not mean that 300 monitors will be deployed already tomorrow all over,” Solana said. “We have begun to implement, tomorrow we will continue to implement, the after tomorrow we will continue to implement, and we would like very much all the different parties to comply [with their commitments] as well as we do.”

He said he hoped Russian forces would leave the buffer zones by October 10.

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