Georgia lobbies EU for Border Monitors, harder stance on Russia
18.04.2005 - 20:52:44
Talks among EU members on a takeover of the OSCE border monitoring mission are in deadlock.
France, Germany, Italy, among others are against it.
They fear it could harm their ties with Russia.
Georgia lobbies EU for Border Monitors, harder stance on Russia
Talks among EU members on a takeover of the OSCE border monitoring mission are in deadlock.
France, Germany, Italy, among others are against it.
They fear it could harm their ties with Russia.
Georgian parliament speaker Nino Burdjanadze is visiting Brussels to meet with the EU External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero Waldner and the bloc´s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana.
Burdjanadze is lobbying for an EU led border observation mission to replace an OSCE mission that has been vetoed by Russia.
In an interview with RFE/RL, Burdjanadze said that Tiflis also wants the EU to put pressure on Russia to withdraw its bases from Georgia and to play a constructive role in resolving the conflicts with Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Georgia is asking for greater EU support in its fraught relations with Russia.
Currently on top of the Georgian agenda is Moscow´s decision in December 2004 to use its veto to terminate a monitoring mission operated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on the border between the two countries.
One source of acrimony is the continued presence of Russian military bases in Georgia.
The EU has offered to oversee a training mission for Georgian border guards, but that is not enough for Tiflis.
´´What is most important, what was most important in this border monitoring operation was this political segment which existed under the OSCE framework.
A political segment where observers could declare that there was no violence on the borders, that there were no problems, because trainers and officers could not make some kind of political statement and that is why Russians are not against a training mission,´´Burdjanadze said.
Talks among EU member states on a possible takeover of the OSCE border monitoring mission are in deadlock.
A number of member states: France, Germany, Italy, among others are against it.
They fear it could harm their ties with Russia.
Another source of acrimony is the continued presence of Russian military bases in Georgia.
At an OSCE meeting in Istanbul in 1999, Russia agreed to withdraw its forces from the four bases.
However, so far, it has only vacated two facilities.
Burdjanadze said the Istanbul agreement concerns the security of all of Europe, as it is linked to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE).
That treaty, signed in 1990, foresaw a reduction of troop levels across the continent.
´´I think that as the Istanbul agreement was very much about European security, very closely linked to the CFE treaty, which is important for many European countries, Europe should play a more serious role in this direction because, despite the fact that we, Georgians, understand how important the ratification of the CFE treaty is, we will not ratify this document until Russia will withdraw military bases from Georgian territory,´´Burdjanadze said.
Burdjanadze will also raise a third issue during her visit. That is the so called frozen conflicts with Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
EU foreign ministers will discuss the frozen conflicts during their informal gathering in Luxembourg on 15 and 16 April.
Source:
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/04/aa9f5566-c02a-4560-b8cf-d3d1efe33c0b.html
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