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Saakashvili Comments on ‘Borderisation’

President Saakashvili said on Monday that as a result of ‘borderisation’ process, Georgia has already lost more farmlands than Tamarasheni and Kurta had – the two villages in breakaway South Ossetia, which Georgia lost, among many other villages, as a result of the August 2008 war.

“In recent month we’ve lost control over more agriculture lands than it was in Kurta and Tamarasheni, but this time… Russia paid no political price for that,” Saakashvili said in televised comments from New York, where he is for the UN General Assembly.

He said this process of installing fences across the administrative boundary line and shifting this line deeper into the Georgian-controlled areas by the Russian troops showed that the notion as if Russia’s aggressive policy towards Georgia was a result of President Putin’s personal hatred against him is wrong.

“Now it is for sure that Russia is carrying out thought-out attack on Georgia’s sovereign borders regardless of who is in Georgia’s government,” he said. “All the political forces, government and me should show unity and firmness… to fight for [Georgia’s] interests.”

He also said that while PM Ivanishvili “has not been invited either to the United States or to any Western European state”, Georgia’s Chief Prosecutor Archil Kbilashvili visited Moscow. According to the prosecutor’s office, Kbilashvili participated in an annual conference of the International Association of Prosecutors, which was held in Moscow on September 8-12.

“Many other incomprehensible reverences were also made [before Russia] and that’s the sign of weakness,” Saakashvili said, adding that policy of appeasement before Russia will be counter-productive.

Russian troops in breakaway South Ossetia resumed this week installing fences across the administrative boundary line close to the village of Dvani. Local Georgian population complains that their farmlands are falling beyond the fences. Authorities in breakaway region deny that there is a shift of the line deeper into the Georgian-controlled areas and say that “the state border” is marked in line with the Soviet-old administrative borders of the former autonomous district of South Ossetia.

The issue also became part of election campaign for some presidential candidates. Leader of Labor Party, Shalva Natelashvili, arrived in Dvani on September 23 and told locals that if elected he would stop ‘borderisation’ process through direct talks with the Russian leadership.

Presidential candidate, former parliament speaker Nino Burjanadze said: “When I see that borders are being changed and I hear nothing from government and see no actions from them to stop it, I have a sense that the country has no government at all.”

Presidential candidate Giorgi Targamadze, leader of the Christian-Democratic Movement, said the Georgian government is “actually incapable to stop this creeping annexation”, adding that softening of rhetoric with Russia does not work.

Georgian Dream presidential candidate Giorgi Margvelashvili said: “The Georgian state will not yield to provocations… Russia was building barb wires and walls in Europe and at the time they probably thought that it was the right policy, but like the Berlin Wall had no future, barb wires installed in Georgia have no future either.”

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

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