Saakashvili Meets with Experts over South Ossetia, Abkhazia

On December 24, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili met with representatives of the expert community and various NGO leaders to discuss the issue of developing peace plans for the South Ossetian and Abkhazian conflicts.

“I request that you work over these proposals with Mr. Gela Bezhuashvili [Secretary of the National Security Council] so that we may put a document on the table by mid-January, or maybe even by January 10, because you have already worked over these issues… we should know what kind of status we will offer Abkhazians and South Ossetians in our common state,” Mikheil Saakashvili said during a televised address made before the meeting.

On December 17 President Saakashvili instructed the government to prepare a peace plan for resolution of the Abkhazian and South Ossetian conflicts.  He said, while addressing the Georgian National Security Council late on December 17, that the plan should envisage a “federal arrangement” of the country with “the widest form of status” for those breakaway regions in the “common state” of Georgia.

He also said that a broad range of different civil society and political organizations should be engaged in the process of developing this peace plan, including South Ossetian and Abkhazian organizations.