Sukhum/Agency Caucasus – Abkhazia’s President Sergei Bagapsh harshly accused the Georgian administration of leading to the cessation of negotiations between the two countries.
Negotiations between Georgia and Abkhazia were stalled, Bagapsh told a press conference in Sukhum, because, he added, Georgia had sent military forces to Upper Kodor, had set up the Abkhazian government in exile, had created provocative situations in Gal, had plotted murders as well as kidnaps.
Peace talks between the two countries remain stalled since July 2006, when Georgia sent military forces to Upper Kodor, part of Abkhazian soil where Abkhazian rule is not in effect. Numerous statements of refusal to resume talks with Georgia came from the Sukhum administration until the Georgian forces withdrew from the area. The United Nations Security Council adopted a bill of call on Tbilisi to disarm the area of Kodor.
Both sides got together twice, first in Geneva on February 28-29 and then in Bonn on June 28-29, when the Georgian Group of Friends was asked by the United Nations Secretary-General to arrange the meetings in the hope that talks would resume. The first direct mutual talks came in September, months after the Bonn meeting, when Abkhazian Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba met with Georgia’s State Minister David Bakradze to discuss the chances for releasing seven Abkhazian border guards who had been taken hostage by some Georgian commanders. ÖZ/FT
