European Union Ambassadors Arrive in Abkhazia
May 30, 2008
A delegation of ambassadors of 15 countries of the European Union arrives in Abkhazia for a two-day visit.
It includes France, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, the Netherlands and Sweden, the chief of the Foreign Ministry’s protocol of the non-recognized republic, Asida Inapshma told ITAR-TASS.
She said the delegation also includes the German consul, the Polish embassy’s second secretary, Estonia’s deputy ambassador and the first secretary of the European Commission’s delegation in Georgia.
Abkhazian Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba told reporters that the “diplomats are going to discuss with the republic’s leadership activating the negotiation process”.
“We plan discussing a wide range of matters connected with the situation in the area of the Georgian-Abkhazian standoff,” he said.
“We once and for ever decided to build our independent state, and nobody will make us turn away from this path, including the European Union,” Abkhazian President Sergei Bagapsh told a news conference in Sukhumi on Thursday.
“We shall try to explain to the ambassadors our stance, which consists in that Abkhazia has chosen its path, has determined with whom to build its relations, how to live and for what to strive,” the president said.
He said “it will be repeatedly stated during the visit of the EU ambassadors that the policy of Abkhazia’s leadership is not aggressive, and the continuation of the peace dialogue is possible if Georgia fulfills the 1994 Moscow agreement on a ceasecefire and disengagement of forces”.
“For the negotiations to resume, Georgia must withdraw all its armed units from the upper part of the Kodori Gorge and sign a agreement on peace and non-resumption of military actions,” Bagapsh said.
“It is up to Georgia where it is and with whom and which alliances to join. And we shall decide how we exist and how we build military, economic and political components,” he said.
The Georgian-Abkhazian negotiations broke in July of 2006 when Georgia moved military units into the upper Kodori Gorge.
According to the Moscow agreement, the territory of the gorge is a demilitarized area.
Surce: Itar-Tass; May 2008
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