Bagapsh Downplays Dispute over Village in ‘Border Talks’ with Moscow
Abkhaz leader, Sergey Bagapsh, said dispute over the village of Aibga in border talks with Moscow was blown out of proportion by inaccurate media reports.
Speaking at a news conference in Sokhumi, Bagapsh said on April 12, that representatives of the Abkhaz diaspora in Turkey were expressing concern over this issue during the meetings with him. Bagapsh said he assured them that it was largely "an artificially" created issue by unreliable press reports.
"I told bluntly to our diaspora, that casual conversations that ‘Bagapsh sold Abkhazia and relinquished Aibga’ are totally groundless. I called on them not to believe in all sorts of nonsense reported on this issue," Abkhaz news agency, Apsnipress, reported quoting Bagapsh.
"We are holding normal negotiating process [with Russia] about delimitation and demarcation of the border," he said.
"No one is going to give even a single square meter to anyone," Bagapsh added.
He slammed as "piggery" cartoon in the Abkhaz press of Russian President and Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev and Vladimir Putin tearing land away from Abkhazia.
He said authors of the cartoon "seem to forget difficulties through which Abkhazia had to go through." "It seems as if there are patriots all around and it is only the Abkhaz government, which is not a patriot," Bagapsh said.
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