Georgia: Tbilisi Starts to Feel the Backlash of Kosovo Independence

President Mikheil Saakashvili's administration in Georgia is confronting a new crisis involving Russia, which on March 6 announced that it no longer feels bound by a 1996 CIS agreement that imposed trade restrictions on the separatist-minded territory of Abkhazia. At the same time, Saakashvili is contending with a fresh wave of domestic opposition discontent.

According to a Russian Foreign Ministry statement, Moscow cited "a change of circumstances" as justification for its decision to abandon the guidelines contained in the CIS pact, titled "On Measures to Regulate the Conflict in Abkhazia, Georgia." That agreement established trade and financial sanctions on the breakaway territory. Political observers in Tbilisi and in the West saw the Russian move as a response to the recent international recognition of Kosovo. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Also, on March 6, the legislature of the Russian territory of North Ossetia, along with that of Georgia's separatist-minded entity, South Ossetia, adopted a joint appeal asking that the Russia's parliament recognize South Ossetia's independence.
Georgian Foreign Minister David Bakradze assailed Russia for its unilateral action on Abkhazia, saying that "any support of separatism from a neighboring state is illegal," the Itar-Tass news agency reported. "This is a dangerous decision.