Building Legal Ground for Cessation of Russian Peacekeeping

President Saakashvili is set to leave for Moscow on July 21, where he will seek a meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on a sideline of an informal CIS summit. Tbilisi’s final decision about Russian peacekeepers will depend on result of these talks, Saakashvili said on July 18.

Meanwhile, officials in Tbilisi are already mulling over procedures required for preparing a legal ground for peacekeepers’ withdrawal, as is envisaged by the Parliament’s July 18 resolution.

Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili said on July 19 that a withdrawal from the agreements that form the basis for the deployment of Russian peacekeepers in the conflict zones, “is a difficult process,” but possible.

“Certain tools for withdrawal from the international treaties exist. It is quite a difficult process and quite an arguable one, but if a political decision is taken we have our arguments on how to withdraw from these agreements,” Bezhuashvili said.

MP Kote Gabashvili, who chairs the parliamentary committee for foreign affairs, said on July 19 that in the case of South Ossetia, where peacekeepers are deployed as a result of the 1992 Russo-Georgian agreement, no treaty exists which defines rules for the withdrawal of peacekeepers.

“Only a document entrusting the parties involved determining dates and rules of withdrawal exists, but this provision has never been implemented. However, in this case one very simple rule comes into play: it is Georgia’s sovereign will to not have any foreign forces on its territory. This is a sovereign right of any state and no rule exists which can obstruct the enforcement of this right,” MP Kote Gabashvili said.

Regarding Abkhazia, MP Gabashvili said that the “situation is even easier,” and cited a 2003 agreement between the Russian and Georgian Presidents and a following decision of the CIS leaders.

The final statement on the meeting between Russian President Putin and then-Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze on March 6-7 in Sochi reads: “the Presidents agreed that from now on, these [Collective Peacekeeping] Forces [of the CIS] will remain in the [Abkhaz] conflict zone, until one of the Parties demands the termination of the peace-keeping operation.”

The provision was confirmed by a March 22, 2003 decision of the CIS leaders in Moscow. Before this provision, the mandate of Russian peacekeeping troops in Abkhazia was extended every six months.

“So speculations that this procedure [withdrawal of peacekeepers] is legally unclear and statements made in Russia that as if these [unilateral] demands [by Tbilisi to pull out peacekeepers] are illegal are not true,” MP Gabashvili said.

Russia, along with the Abkhaz and South Ossetian sides, claims Georgia has no right to unilaterally demand the cessation of the current peacekeeping operations.

Opposition parliamentarians claim that Georgia’s withdrawal from the CIS would have been an effective measure for ceasing the Russian peacekeeping operation in Abkhazia.

But MP Gabashvili said that withdrawal from the CIS will not automatically lead to the cessation of the current peacekeeping operation. “Withdrawal from the CIS will not change anything in this respect,” he noted.

Georgian State Minister for Conflict Resolution Issues Giorgi Khaindrava said on July 19 that none of the provisions of the agreements, which make a legal base of the peacekeeping operations, are being fulfilled by the Russian peacekeeping troops and this is grounds for the renunciation of these agreements.

The July 18 Parliament resolution also instructs the government to secure the deployment of international police forces in the conflict zones.

“The major problem in this regard is [deciding] under whose aegis peacekeeping operations will be carried out,” Bezhuashvili said, adding that Russia has a decisive voice in both the UN and the OSCE.