Responding to a question from the floor at the PACE, Mikheil Saakashvili ruled out the possibility of peace talks on Abkhazia. He said “the Abkhazian side has left the negotiating table” and pointed to the fact that hundreds of thousands of ethnic Georgians were driven out from Abkhazia during the war which occurred in the whole region in 1992-93 and during unrests in the Gali region in 1998.
The statement came as a surprise, as until recently Saakashvili’s administration was actively developing comprehensive settlement proposals for Abkhazia and called for dialogue with the new Abkhaz authorities.
Observers note that this toughening of Tbilisi’s stance may have followed as a result of statements made by Abkhazia’s President-elect Sergey Bagapsh in Moscow, in which he ruled out the possibility of a return of the displaced persons to Abkhazia.
This statement from the new Abkhaz leadership further exposed Saakashvili to broad-based criticism in Georgia. His administration has recently come under fire from nationalist forces and displaced persons, who consider the draft Abkhazia peace proposals – offering the creation of a federated Georgian-Abkhaz state – as defeatist.