EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Georgia Pushes for G8 Frozen Conflicts Discussion

EURASIA INSIGHT

GEORGIA PUSHES FOR G8 FROZEN CONFLICTS DISCUSSION
Molly Corso 7/05/06

A July 5 meeting between Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and US President George W Bush in Washington is being seen as a last-minute push by Tbilisi to put Georgia’s frozen conflicts with the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia on the agenda of an upcoming G8 summit.

Both Georgian and American observers have underlined the meeting’s significance for the July 15-17 conference, to be hosted in St. Petersburg by Russia, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the group of the world’s eight most powerful industrial economies.

"From the Georgian side certainly one of the purposes of the meeting is to keep the conflicts on the agenda of the G8," Dr. Cory Welt, deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, said in an email interview. "But it is also important for Saakashvili to keep the issue of conflict and -- more broadly -- Georgia’s role in US-Russian and transatlantic relations on the radar screen in the lead-up to a meeting in which participants will try their hardest to identify common points of agreement . . .

Ambassador David Smith, a senior resident fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies who is involved in Georgia’s US-backed national security reforms, described the meeting with Bush as a "signal" to the international community that the United States supports Georgia and its territorial integrity.

However, Smith rejected the idea that the meeting is intended as an aggressive maneuver against Moscow. "It is not an attack, it is simply a benign message," he said. "It is a simple statement: �If you recognize Georgia’s sovereignty as we do, start acting like it.’"

Aside from Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili, the delegation accompanying Saakashvili to Washington will also include presidential envoy Irakli Alasania, head of the exiled Abkhazian government who represents Georgia in talks on Abkhazia, and Parliamentary Committee for Defense and Security Deputy Chairman Nika Rurua.

Following a tense meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in June, Saakashvili had promised an all-out campaign to raise Georgia’s territorial conflicts at the G8 summit. The Georgian leader’s meeting with Bush was announced just days after the talks between Saakashvili and Putin concluded.

The initial response from Moscow suggested that the Kremlin would not welcome such a move. In a June 22 interview with the Russian news agency Interfax, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kaminin stated that a discussion of frozen conflicts in the former Soviet Union at a June 29 meeting of G8 foreign ministers would not be productive. That position was later reversed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Any discussion at the summit itself could prove limited, however. At a July 4 press conference in Moscow, Kremlin foreign policy aide Sergei Prikhodko stated that nearly all of the summit’s joint declarations have already been prepared for signature, The Moscow Times reported.

Securing a commitment by the international community to take an active role in resolving the Abkhazia and South Ossetia conflicts has long proved a key problem for the Saakashvili administration, observers say. Despite the US administration’s support for the Saakashvili government, there is still no sign that either Washington or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are interested in participating in peacekeeping activities in either Abkhazia or South Ossetia.

Tamara Pataraia, project manager and researcher at the Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development in Tbilisi, commented that increased discussions by the European Union and the US about the conflicts do not translate into new peacekeeping missions. "[The Russian] peacekeepers will continue for six months at least," Pataraia said. "I don’t see any policy now or agreement�in general nobody supports Georgia’s proposal [to remove Russian peacekeepers and replace them with an international body] right now."

The Georgian parliament was originally scheduled to discuss the future of Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia on July 1. The debate has since been postponed until July 13. In February, the legislature voted for the removal of Russian troops from South Ossetia.

Meanwhile, for its part, the White House is projecting the July 5 meeting with Bush as something more akin to a progress report on Georgia’s democratic reform campaign than to a pre-summit pow-wow. An official press release states that Bush wants to discuss "developments in the consolidation" of democracy building in Georgia a year after his trip to Tbilisi.

Georgian opposition leaders and many human rights advocates maintain that the current government is not protecting civil liberties. Some international non-governmental organizations are expressing concerns as well.

On June 27, Human Rights Watch published an open letter to Bush asking him to use his influence to stop Georgia’s "backsliding" on human rights, and to raise the issues of prison conditions, judicial reform and police brutality in Georgia during the meeting with Saakashvili.

However, some US analysts maintain the meeting will be a positive one. According to Dr. Welt, democratic performance is largely a matter of comparison. "From Washington’s perspective, Georgia still receives high marks in comparison with the rest of the region," he said. "It is difficult to imagine President Bush saying anything other than the usual platitudes about the need to consolidate Georgia’s democratic gains."

Pataraia agreed, noting that this meeting will also give Saakashvili a chance to promote his accomplishments over the past year. She added that with local elections in Georgia planned for this autumn, it is likely that Bush will emphasis the need for a fair vote. "The US is showing its interest in democratic institution building," she said. "I don’t think it will be some kind of critical meeting. Saakashvili will receive some criticism from Bush, but � [he] will express his successes and the progress going on in the country."

Editor�s Note: Molly Corso is a freelance reporter and photographer based in Tbilisi.

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