Sokhumi, Tbilisi Accuse Each Other of Politicizing Humanitarian Agencies Operation

Abkhaz leader, Sergey Bagapsh, accused Tbilisi of an attempt “to undermine” work of dozen of international humanitarian groups operating in the breakaway region, claiming that the Georgian authorities were “pressuring” those groups not to sign with Sokhumi a document setting “a legal framework” for their activities in the region.

Bagapsh says in an English-language statement released on March 1, that these “untoward” attempts by Tbilisi might “unnecessarily disrupt” humanitarian services from twelve organizations “to thousands of innocent civilians.”

RFE/RL’s Russian-language Ekho Kavkaza reported last month that Sokhumi had offered international non-governmental organizations and several UN agencies, including UNDP, UNHCR and UNICEF, operating in the region to sign a memorandum on cooperation, preamble of which contains a following wording: “Respecting the sovereignty and independence of the Republic of Abkhazia”. Some of those organizations, in response, offered Sokhumi to sign “a code of conduct”, which, according to the report by Ekho Kavkaza, was partly similar to the Abkhaz-proposed memorandum, but made no references to the region’s status.

Bagapsh said in the statement that code of conduct “has no legal governing authority” and “no government would stand for that, and no NGO would want its people working under such ill-defined conditions.” He also called on the humanitarian organizations to urge Tbilisi “to cease immediately its campaign to politicize humanitarian NGO services.”

Officials in Tbilisi say that Sokhumi itself politicizes the issue by trying to gain some sort of recognition through insisting on signing a memorandum with reference to the status.

Both Sokhumi and Tbilisi say that they are interested in presence of the humanitarian organizations in the region.

This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)