Sukhum/Agency Caucasus – Just as Kosovo emerged to be an independent state, Abkhazia could also do the same, said Abkhazia’s President Sergei Bagapsh, and added that his country did not expect to get recognition from Russia only because this could constitute a retaliative response to the Western recognition of independent to a new state in the Balkans.
"Just as Kosovo can become independent, Abkhazia can also become independent," Bagapsh told El Pais, the most widely-circulated daily newspaper in Spain. "We want to have an independent and democratic state governed by the rule of law."
Bagapsh classified Georgia as an aggressive state that Europe supplied with more arms than it could possibly bear. "We do not want Russia to go against the will of the United States (US) and recognize us only in revenge for the recognition of Kosovo. We demand to have independence, because it is our right to have it. We used to be an independent state in the past."
After Kosovo declared on February 17 its unilateral independence from Serbia, Turkey, the US and many European countries granted their recognition to it.
However, Russia warned that Kosovo’s recognition would set an example for Abkhazia as well as South Ossetia and therefore sought to prevent the birth of a new state in the Balkans.
The administration of Russia bluffed when it said that it would recognize both Abkhazia and South Ossetia if Kosovo were granted international recognition. Although Kosovo was really granted the recognition that it sought from international community, Russia abandoned its former plans for improving its relations with the two ‘de facto’ countries in the fields of economics, society, science and education.
