Georgia urges EU to boost Caucasus security role
By Sebastian Alison

Reuters
Sept 14 2004

BRUSSELS, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Georgia urged the European Union on
Tuesday to engage Russia on border security in the volatile South
Caucasus to bring peace to a region that both Moscow and Brussels
regard as part of their “backyard”.

Chronic instability of the Caucasus was dramatised by the school
siege in Beslan, in the Russian region of North Ossetia, when more
than 300 people, half of them children, died in a chaotic end to
a hostage-taking by Chechen gunmen. Now that the South Caucasus
states of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan have joined the EU’s
“new neighbourhood” programme to boost ties with countries around
the expanding bloc, the EU should hold direct talks with Moscow on
border security, Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili said.

“I’ve been pleading here for the EU to raise this question with
Russia,” she told reporters.

“We think that with the South Caucasus being now in the new
neighbourhood initiative and being also in the “near abroad” of
Russia, there is an item for cooperation between the EU and Russia
to deal with terrorism through more exchange of information, through
border management.”

Russia has traditionally regarded the South Caucasus as part of
its sphere of influence and spurned outside help, but the region is
increasingly seeking closer ties with Brussels. Georgia has moved
furthest in aligning itself with the EU.

It elected pro-western President Mikhail Saakashvili in January after
veteran leader Eduard Shevardnadze was overthrown.

Saakashvili, 36, a Western-educated lawyer, emphasised his European
credentials by appointing Zurabishvili, a French national then serving
as French ambassador to Tbilisi, as his foreign minister in March.

GEORGIA NOW IN EU BACKYARD

The EU has stepped up its own interest in Georgia since Saakashvili’s
election, but stresses the need to continue engagement with Moscow.

“It’s an important part of our backyard, where we can only achieve
our own objectives if we’re working closely with Russia,” said Emma
Udwin, spokeswoman for EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten.

“It is clear that there’s been a sea-change in the attention given
to this region,” she added.

Zurabishvili said the security situation had not worsened since the
Beslan siege, “but it only confirms what we had been saying before,
that it’s very dangerous in this region to generate instability”.

She added she was extremely concerned by the lack of control on the
border between the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, and
Russia’s North Ossetia, and she wanted the EU to press Russia for
closer coperation on that area.

Zurabishvili cautioned against attempts by Moscow to bring stability
to the region unilaterally, citing violations of Georgian airspace
by Russia on Tuesday as unacceptable.

She also rejected threats by Russia’s top general, Yuri Baluyevsky,
to attack “terrorist bases” anywhere in the world — remarks widely
interpreted as referring especially to Georgia.

“We don’t think this is the proper approach to deal with this question,
especially as we have shown our readiness to cooperate,” she said of
Baluyevsky’s remarks.

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, in Brussels for
separate talks with the EU, agreed that the bloc had a role in
fighting terrorism and bringing stability to the South Caucasus,
saying his talks had stressed the benefits of closer economic and
political cooperation.