Georgian Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze hailed Ukraine for initiating discussion on Georgia in frames of the UN Security Council.
“Raising Georgia’s issue at the yesterday’s closed session of the UN Security Council and the support expressed by the Council member states was extremely important. The issue of occupation of our territories and Russia’s commitments under 2008 ceasefire agreement remain on the agenda of the international community. We welcome the fact that the issue was discussed in frames of the UN Security Council,” Janelidze told reporters in Brussels on December 7.
Ukraine’s permanent representative at the UN, Volodymyr Yelchenko, said in the interview with Ukrainian web portal LB.ua that since the Russian President signed on November 22 the law on ratification of the so-called treaty with Sokhumi on establishing a Combined Group of Forces in breakaway Abkhazia, the Ukrainian delegation initiated on December 6 a discussion at the UN Security Council on the situation in Georgia in order to condemn Russia’s actions as an attempt to legitimize the illegal deployment of Russian troops on the occupied territory of Georgia.
The Ukrainian ambassador said that Russia “blocked” the Ukrainian delegation’s proposal for the Security Council members to approve some elements to the press, consisting of just two sentences that the Security Council has discussed the situation in Georgia and “members of the Security Council have confirmed their full support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia within the framework of its internationally recognized borders.”
Permanent Mission of Georgia to the United Nations thanked Ukraine for initiating discussion on Georgia that, according to the Georgian Foreign Ministry, is a result of Georgia’s “active work with partners.”
The Georgian Foreign Ministry said that during the closed session the Ukrainian delegation “condemned Russia’s actions and assessed them as a step towards factual annexation of Georgia’s occupied regions.”
“Other partner states also made statements supporting Georgia’s territorial integrity. Not a single member of the 15-member Security Council, but Russia, expressed an opposite position,” the Georgian Foreign Ministry said on December 7.
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