Eurasia Insight:
GEORGIA'S URANIUM SCANDAL: A PR CAMPAIGN FOR REUNIFICATION?
Molly Corso: 1/30/07

A uranium smuggling incident is providing fresh fuel for the long-running Georgian-Russian feud. Russian officials have termed news of Georgia’s uranium smuggling investigation “a provocation.” Meanwhile, Georgian analysts believe the incident may provide new momentum for the Georgian government’s efforts to restore its authority over the breakaway territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

At present, Russian peacekeepers are responsible for maintaining a semblance of order in the two separatist entities. Georgian officials appear intent on using news of the uranium smuggling attempt to garner support for the replacement of the Russian peacekeepers with a multinational force. Such a move would significantly reduce Russia’s geopolitical leverage over Georgia. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

From the outset, the Georgian government has maintained the uranium smuggling scandal exposes a need for greater international control over separatist South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In a January 25 statement, released the day information about the year-long investigation became public, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs charged that the arrests of four alleged uranium smugglers – one Russian, three Georgian – underscored the lack of control over the mountainous borders that run between Russia and the two contested territories. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

“[I]t should be emphasized that uncontrolled separatist territories in Georgia serve as a safe haven for illegal activities related to proliferation of different components of weapons of mass destruction,” the ministry declared. “This is one of the reasons why the government of Georgia has long sought [the] stationing of international observers on the segments of its border with the Russian Federation adjacent to Georgia’s separatist territories of Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali Region/South Ossetia.”

Mamuka Areshidze, chairman of the Caucasian Centre of Strategic Research in Tbilisi, and Dr. Archil Gegeshidze, a senior fellow at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, noted that the announcement about the smuggling case is “probably” part of a larger strategy by the Georgian government to emphasize to the outside world the need for concrete action on its concerns about the two territories. Georgia’s accusations about uranium smuggling come on the heels of charges that a counterfeiting operation, responsible for manufacturing at least $42 million in $100 bills, exists on South Ossetian territory. The separatist leadership in the South Ossetia has rejected Tbilisi’s accusation.

“[I]t is worthwhile for the Georgian government to continuously try and bring international attention to the fact that these regions are not controlled and [that] they can create instability throughout the region,” Areshidze said.

Information about the 100 grams of weapons-grade uranium -- reportedly transported to Georgia via South Ossetia -- has run in parallel with a slew of fresh statements from President Mikheil Saakashvili’s administration about its intentions toward both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

In a televised speech on January 25, the day the government released information in Tbilisi about its investigation, Saakashvili told viewers that “[t]he time has come for us to prepare to take much more decisive steps forward” for “the final reunification of our country." Residents of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, “are still being held hostage by a gang of criminals, as are our citizens who reside in the surrounding villages,” Saakashvili charged in remarks broadcast by television station Rustavi-2.

“[O]ur Abkhazia,” he continued, “is in the hands of people who impudently … declare that they will never let in the people … who were unconscionably expelled from there. Georgia will never reconcile itself to that.”

In a January 25 article, The New York Times reported Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili as saying that Georgian investigators had arrested one man in August 2006 for smuggling raw uranium from Abkhazia. The Times said that Abkhaz officials have pledged to cooperate with an investigation, but have denied knowledge of the man's detention.

Officials in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, however, have scoffed at the notion that their territories are being used as a transit zone for nuclear materials. Murat Dzhioyev, the de facto foreign minister of South Ossetia, has argued that Tbilisi is using the uranium scandal to gain leverage in the ongoing World Trade Organization negotiations between Georgia and Russia. Tbilisi is demanding, so far unsuccessfully, that Russia uphold a 2004 agreement to legalize trade along its borders with both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

As in South Ossetia, Abkhaz officials moved quickly to deflect Georgia’s security concerns. “Nobody ever tried to smuggle weapons of mass destruction across the Russian-Abkhazian border,” the Russian state-run news agency ITAR-TASS quoted de facto Abkhazian foreign minister Sergei Shamba as saying on January 26. "Abkhazia is just as mindful of regional security as is Georgia.”

Shamba argued that Georgia's announcement was designed to coincide with a United Nations Security Council discussion of the situation in Abkhazia. In a January 24 statement, the Security Council expressed “concern at some of the aspects of the tense situation” in Abkhazia, but described the return of United Nations monitors and Russian peacekeepers to observe the Georgian-controlled Upper Kodori Gorge as “[e]specially important.”

For now, chances for substantive talks between Tbilisi and the separatist governments appear slim. On January 30, de facto Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh repeated his readiness to hold direct talks with Saakashvili, provided that Georgia agrees to the “demilitarization” of the Kodori Gorge, among other conditions. The Georgian government did not immediately respond to Bagapsh’s statement.

The same day, however, following an appeal by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Chairman-in-Office Miguel Angel Moratinos, the Georgian government agreed to join an “informal” meeting of the Joint Control Commission, which oversees the South Ossetian peace talks, in Tskhinvali. Moscow and Tskhinvali have not yet responded to the announcement.

Georgian officials steadfastly dispute the notion that they are trying to use the smuggling case for Tbilisi’s own political gain. According to Zurab Bendianishvili, a specialist on the Georgian parliament’s provisional Committee on Territorial Integrity Issues, the government’s aim is merely to alert the world to a potentially dangerous proliferation problem. “We are working to make sure Russia secures its borders. Not to utilize the situation against the peacekeepers,” Bendianishvili said.

It remains uncertain whether the uranium smuggling incident will heighten the scrutiny of Russian peacekeeping operations. Even with the threat of uranium smuggling, noted the analyst Gegeshidze, it will be difficult for Tbilisi to force the international community to take any action against Russia in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia. “Georgia is not as vital for the West as it is for Russia’s strategy,” he said. “If you weigh Georgia’s importance to the West and Russia’s importance [to the West], Georgia loses.”

Editor’s Note: Molly Corso is a freelance reporter and photojournalist based in Tbilisi.