President of breakaway Abkhazia Sergey Bagapsh is visiting Moscow from April 12-13, following talks with senior U.S. diplomats in the Abkhaz capital Sokhumi on April 11. While various Russian news agencies have reported that Bagapsh plans to talk with unspecified Russian officials no other details of this trip are known.
Sergey Bagapsh told reporters after talks with the U.S. delegation, which included the U.S. Department of State’s Senior Advisor for Caspian Basin Energy Diplomacy Ambassador Steven Mann, who is also the Special Negotiator for Nagorno-Karabakh and Eurasian Conflicts, and U.S. Ambassador to Georgia Richard Miles, that Abkhazia will not give up its uncompromising stance over the region’s independence.
The Abkhaz leader reiterated that Sokhumi is presently ready to discuss only economic issues with the Georgian side, as talks over the political problems would bring the negotiation process to a halt. Sergey Bagapsh said that the Abkhaz side is ready to contribute developing a peace plan, which could guarantee the “peaceful co-existence of the two neighboring states,” the Abkhaz news agency Apsnipress reported.
After talks in Sokhumi, Steven Mann and U.S. Ambassador to Georgia Richard Miles met with President Mikheil Saakashvili to brief him over this visit to Sokhumi. Later, the U.S. diplomats also met with Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli, as well as with Chairman of Georgian Parliamentary Committee on Defense and Security MP Givi Targamadze in Tbilisi on April 12.
MP Givi Targamadze told reporters after talks that the “Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is ready to meet Sergey Bagapsh and Eduard Kokoity [leader of breakaway South Ossetia] in Tbilisi during the visit of [U.S. President] George Bush to Georgia” on May 10. The statement immediately triggered speculations that the U.S. diplomats invited the Abkhaz leader to Tbilisi during the U.S. President’s visit. Steven Mann, however, said that his visit to Sokhumi had nothing in common with the U.S. President’s planned trip to Georgia.
Political analysts in Tbilisi say that this recent visit by senior U.S. diplomats to Abkhazia, as well as the U.S. President’s scheduled visit, is a clear indication of Washington’s increased interest in the the Abkhaz conflict resolution issue.
“This is the first time that such a high-level, U.S. diplomatic mission has visited Abkhazia. Tbilisi has tried for a long time to increase U.S. motivation towards being more actively involved in the resolution of this conflict. But these attempts have been fruitless so far. But now the U.S. understands very well that there will be no stability in this region without settlement of these conflicts,” political analyst Archil Gegeshidze, from the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS), told Civil Georgia.
He also said that the planned visit by George W. Bush also contributs to U.S. diplomatic efforts. “Washington is studying this conflict in more detail on the eve of Bush’s visit… I do not rule out the possibility that the U.S. diplomats invited Bagapsh to Tbilisi during the U.S. President’s visit. But it would be very difficult for this to happen because of Russia’s role,” Archil Gegeshidze said.
“Bagapsh is not the kind of person to take important steps without prior agreement with Moscow. That is why he left for Russia shortly after his talks with U.S. diplomats,” he added.
Many political analysts also believe that the U.S. diplomats delivered at least two messages to the Abkhaz leader: “find a compromise with the Georgian side; and, secondly, the international community will never recognize Abkhazia’s independence,” Gegeshidze said.