Both Moscow and Tbilisi Claim UN Resolution a “Victory”

Both Russia and Georgia have hailed the United Nations Security Council's October 13 resolution on the Abkhazian conflict zone as a victory for their respective policy positions on Georgia's right to reclaim the breakaway Black Sea region.

The Russia-sponsored resolution called on the Georgian government to refrain from provocative actions in the breakaway region of Abkhazia, whose separatist government has strong ties to Moscow. It also extended by six months the mandate of United Nations (UN) monitors in the conflict zone, which was due to expire on October 15.

Moscow began pushing for the resolution amidst a recent dispute with Tbilisi over Georgia's arrest of Russian military officers on espionage charges that led to the evacuation of scores of Russian citizens from Georgia and the recall of the Russian ambassador to Tbilisi for consultations. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Further measures by Russian authorities have included the deportation of Georgians working in Russia, the closure of various Georgian-owned businesses and reported police requests for lists of schoolchildren with Georgian last names. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Responding to the Security Council vote, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated on October 13 that the resolution was "based on fact" and a victory for Russian interests. The resolution "reflected all of Russia's fundamental suggestions," Lavrov was quoted by news agencies as saying.

Lavrov argued that the resolution "unambiguously" blames Georgia's July 2006 police action in the upper part of the Kodori Gorge, a strip of Abkhazian territory still controlled by Georgia, for the current tensions in the conflict zone. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive.] "Now, when the UN Security Council has spoken out, I think that they [the Georgian authorities] will have to follow these requirements," he said on October 13, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported.

But Georgia, at least officially, maintains that the resolution is a defeat for Russia and its objections to the pro-Georgian Abkhazian government-in-exile's presence in the Gorge. In a televised press conference the day of the UN Security Council vote, President Saakashvili noted that the resolution makes "no mention" that Georgia must vacate the part of the Kodori Gorge it controls or remove the "legitimate" Abkhazian government from the area. The government-in-exile moved from Tbilisi to the upper Kodori Gorge in late September.

"[T]here were two most important things that Russian diplomats wanted. The first was the unconditional condemnation of Georgia's operation in the Kodori Gorge, [U]pper Abkhazia. Such a document, although not compulsory for implementation, would have had significant legal force," he said, according to transcripts from the broadcast on Rustavi-2 television. "This was not supported, and it is a good thing it was not