Kavkaz Center, Turkey
July 16 2004

Georgia is not the one solving the problem of war and peace

During his visit to Georgia Ambassador Steven Mann, the US State
Department’s Special Negotiator for Eurasian Conflicts, met with
senior Georgian officials on Thursday to discuss ways to reduce the
tensions in the conflict region of South Ossetia. He stated that the
US fully supports Saakashvili on the issues of settling the situation
in Georgia’s breakaway (pro-Russian) regions of South Ossetia and
Abkhazia.

Ambassador Mann told reporters before his departure from Tbilisi,
Georgia to Baku, Azerbaijan that his visit was quite productive, and
that the mission of his visit was to reduce the tensions in order to
avoid a power solution of the scenario in the Georgian-Ossetian
conflict.

He also said that the US government is watching the Georgian-Russian
negotiations in Moscow closely, and many things depend on them.

Ambassador Mann especially stressed that Russia’s role is being
mentioned pretty often, even though one should remember that the
position of the Georgian government must be of number one priority.

He mentioned that the US Department of State and the US government
are interested not only in resolving the conflict in Tskhinvali
District, but in settling the conflict in Abkhazia as well.

Steven Mann said that Secretary of State Colin Powell is personally
in control of these issues, and that the US fully supports President
Saakashvili.

A few hours later Steven Mann expressed serious concern that the US
has about the escalation of tensions in South Ossetia. In diplomatic
lingo it means that Washington is going to have an active influence
on the process and use its position as Georgia’s protector.

To confirm that statement, the US representative stressed that
Secretary Powell wants to personally make sure that the US is doing
all things necessary to support peaceful solution to this problem.
Mann explained that this is the reason why he visited Georgian
capital Tbilisi.

It is symptomatic that Washington’s diplomatic activities go beyond
just the situation around South Ossetia. Press Service of the US
Embassy in Georgia announced that the main mission of US State
Department’s Special Negotiator’s visit to the South Caucasus is to
continue discussions on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Ambassador
Mann is the US Co-Chair of the OSCE’s Minsk Group dedicated to
resolving that conflict. Besides, Ambassador Mann serves as a
catalyst between governments, industry and in some cases NGOs, to
achieve specific milestones to forward the goal of creating an
East-West energy corridor from the Caspian to the Mediterranean.

While in Tbilisi, Ambassador Mann may also have meetings regarding
the BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) pipeline.

Meanwhile in Georgia the problem of whether or not a war will break
out is now being discussed. Most of the ones who have their say on
this issue stick to the viewpoint that Russia would benefit from the
war, and this is why the US will not let the war happen.

At the same time, Saakashvili’s critics are voicing an opinion that
military tensions around South Ossetia have been created
artificially, which is harmful for the country and which creates
favorable conditions for further separation of South Ossetia from
Georgia. The story with captuing 50 policemen was a painful blow to
the psychological state of the Georgians, who just started to believe
in the chance of regaining control over South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Georgian President’s opponents are also convinced that provoking a
military conflict, which is unlikely to develop into a ful-scale war,
will virtually create ideal conditions for Abkhazia and South Ossetia
to strengthen their statuses of independent republics. Saakashvili’s
critics believe that this kind of a situation will make the country’s
leadership give up on any firther attempts to regain control over
these regions. In exchange, Georgia will allegedly be offered a place
in NATO.

Such a scenario implies some conspiracy between Russia and the US.
But it’s kind of hard to say how possible it would be in the present
conditions. One thing is clear that Washington needs stability in
this region. Big Caspian oilfields are on the approaches (‘in the
pipeline’ so to say), and the situation in Iraq is not getting any
better either. If a war will have to happen, the war will have to be
quick, and Russia will not be supposed to take part in it. But if the
war will not happen, then Georgia will have to forget all about its
former autonomies for quite a while.

The future will show which one of the scenarios has been picked in
Washington. But one thing is already clear today: the problem of war
in peace is not being solved in Tbilisi or Tskhinvali.

Data Tutashkhia, Tbilisi, Georgia.

For Kavkaz-Center