As part of a growing Euro-Atlantic campaign to reduce tensions between Georgia and Russia over the breakaway region of Abkhazia, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza traveled to Sukhumi on July 25 to push for Abkhaz participation in international peace talks in Berlin. The trip is the second for the senior American diplomat since May.
The July 6 explosion ripped through the Svetlyachok (Firefly) café in Gali, a predominantly ethnic Georgian town in southern Abkhazia, leaving four people dead and six badly injured. The explosion -- which occurred directly across from the Russian peacekeeping headquarters for the region -- followed a series of blasts in the Abkhaz towns of Gagra and Sukhumi.
For many Georgians, May 21 was as much about a mysterious armed incident near the border with the breakaway region of Abkhazia, as it was about electing a new parliament. While details remain murky, the incident is stoking tension between Georgia and the renegade territory.
Almost inured to conflict, residents of Sukhumi, capital of Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia, are focusing less on the Georgian plane shoot-down incident and fears of fresh fighting, and more on the likely benefits to be had from Moscow's recent lifting of an economic embargo against the region.
Georgian officials are weighing a response to an April 16 edict from the Kremlin, under which Russia can establish official cooperation with the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. While Tbilisi has termed the move an attempt at "annexation," some local analysts question the actual impact of Moscow's actions.
Nearly two weeks after the Russian government announced the unilateral lifting of a trade embargo against the separatist region of Abkhazia, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is trying to outmaneuver Moscow by building international support for an overhaul of the Abkhaz peace process.
While international attention focuses on the upcoming Georgian presidential elections, Tbilisi's tussle with the opposition has coincided with a stepped-up campaign against Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia. The opposition contends that the alarm bells about an alleged Russian military build-up in the region are politically motivated.
Georgia says it will move to formally ask Russian peacekeepers to leave the breakaway region of Abkhazia following reports that they seized and beat five Georgian police officers.
