Sukhum/Agency Caucasus – After Kosovo was granted the international recognition that it sought for its independence, the time has come for Abkhazia to get recognized the same way too, said Dieter Boden, former special envoy of the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General for Abkhazia, who had proposed a autonomy-based plan to solve the conflict between Abkhazia and Georgia.
"Is it legal to deny the Abkhazians what the Kosovans were granted?" asked Boden to make his support evident for Abkhazia’s efforts to gain international recognition.
President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia received criticism from Boden for his promotion of an armed attack as a threat against Abkhazia.
Boden also accused the Russian administration of placing political pressure on its Abkhazian counterpart while it assumed an intermediary role to play at the same time.
Boden is a German diplomat and he was the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Abkhazia between 1998 and 2002. He also chaired while he was in Georgia from 1994 to 1997 the mission staff of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Boden studied the Russian literature extensively as well.
While he was the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Abkhazia, he proposed what later came to be known as the Boden Peace Plan, which suggested that Georgia should be federalized and negotiations should be held between Georgia and Abkhazia over separation of subjects of jurisdiction and constitutional authority. The Abkhazian administration, however, declined even to take a look at it.
In February, Sergei Shamba, Foreign Minister of Abkhazia, said that the Boden Peace Plan could no longer be relied on–a fact that required a search for new ways to solve the conflict between Georgia and Abkhazia. Shamba also stressed that negotiations could not be held within the framework of the Boden Peace Plan because it was basically meant to cover the interests of Georgia. KU/ÖZ/FT
