From: MSN Nicknamepsychoteddybear24 (Original Message) Sent: 5/25/2006 11:38 AM PROGRESS IN ABKHAZ PEACE TALKS
The fact that Tbilisi and Sukhum come up with new peace initiatives is seen as a positive step, even if they continue to disagree on most issues.
By Anton Krivenyuk in Sukhum and Sofo Bukia in Tbilisi
New life was breathed into the Abkhazian peace process this week when Georgian presidential adviser Irakli Alasania personally handed a peace plan to the Abkhaz authorities.
The plan presented by Alasania, together with an Abkhaz plan which President Sergei Bagapsh handed over in Tbilisi on May 15, represent the most detailed documents to be presented since the conflict ended 12 years ago with Abkhazia claiming independence from Georgia – a claim still unrecognised by the outside world.
Calling his plan a “key to the future”, Bagapsh told journalists that “goodwill on both sides is the key to success and… a lasting peace”.
Although the exchange of documents represented a step forward, each side was extremely cool about the other’s proposals.
Referring to Bagapsh’s plan, Georgia’s conflict resolution minister Giorgi Khaindrava told IWPR, “The name lacks two words: it should have been called a “key to the future of independent Abkhazia.”
Khaindrava said the plan was “basically a declaration of Abkhazia’s independence” – an idea that Tbilisi refuses to countenance.
After Alasania presented his plan on May 24, Abkhaz foreign minister Sergei Shamba said, “Having seen the Georgian plan, I don’t even see where we could begin a conversation.”
The Abkhaz plan was delivered a week earlier when the Georgian-Abkhaz coordinating council for the conflict met in Tbilisi after a break of more than four years.
The document calls on Tbilisi to recognise Abkhazia’s independence, end its economic blockade of the republic, apologise for previous policies, and agree to a series of security measures and peaceful co-existence.
According to Shamba, who led the Abkhaz delegation at the Tbilisi meeting, his government also envisages the return of all Georgian refugees to the southern Gali region (called Gal by the Abkhaz) within two years.
“The blood that was shed is hindering the solution of problems,” said Shamba, referring to the return of refugees. “Time heals things, and the time will come when the issue of refugees returning to the whole of Abkhazia will come onto the agenda”.
The contents of the Georgian plan, called a Road Map, have so far not been revealed in public.
Alasania, who is the Georgian president’s adviser on Abkhaz conflict resolution, told the coordinating council that his government’s priority was for the displaced Georgians – numbering about 250,000 – to go back to Abkhazia. The next steps would be to rebuild mutual trust and ensure security, with economic rehabilitation and the resolution of Abkhazia’s political status coming only at the end of the process.
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