Analysis: Georgia Parliament Ups Ante On Russian Bases
By Liz Fuller

RFERL
10 March 05

Deputies in Georgia’s parilament voted unanimously on 10 March to
call on the government to effectively blockade the bases if the two
countries do not agree on their removal by mid-May.

Under an agreement signed at the OSCE Istanbul Summit in November
1999, Russia undertook to close by 1 July 2000 its military bases in
Vaziani, near Tbilisi, and Gudauta, Abkhazia, and to begin talks with
the Georgian leadership in 2000 on the timeframe for closing its two
remaining bases in Batumi and Akhalkalaki. Russia complied with first
of those commitments, and embarked as required on talks on shutting
down the latter two bases.

But in the course of those talks, Russian officials have consistently
argued that a lengthy time period is required to build housing in
Russia for the troops to be withdrawn from Georgia. (That argument is
specious insofar as many of the personnel at the base in Akhalkalaki
are in fact ethnic Armenians who are citizens of Georgia.) Initially,
Russian officials said they needed 15 years to close the bases, then
14; that figure was revised downward to 11, and then eight years,
according to Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli on 9 March.

After the Georgian and Russian sides failed during Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit to Tbilisi last month to make any
progress toward solving either the deadlock over the bases or any
of the problems bedeviling bilateral relations, it was agreed to
establish working groups to seek to narrow the disagreements and
report on 1 May to the countries’ two presidents. Those working groups
will focus on six issues, including the proposed framework treaty
on friendship and cooperation and the timeframe for the closure of
the two bases.”If Russia rejects or refuses to met that deadline,
the Georgian parliament would declare the bases illegal and measures
would be taken to prevent them from functioning: Georgia would,
for example, decline to issue visas to Russian military personnel.”

Despite that agreement, Givi Targamadze, chairman of the Georgian
parliament’s Defense and Security Committee, announced within days of
Lavrov’s departure that the two remaining Russian bases should close by
1 January 2006 at the latest. On 25 February, parliament speaker Nino
Burdjanadze suggested that the Georgian leadership might declare the
Russian bases illegal if an agreement is not reached soon on a date
for their closure. Then on 7 March, parliament deputy Giga Bokeria
unveiled a draft bill that would require Russia to agree formally by
15 May to close the two remaining bases by 1 January 2006. If Russia
rejects or refuses to met that deadline, the Georgian parliament would
declare the bases illegal and measures would be taken to prevent them
from functioning: Georgia would, for example, decline to issue visas
to Russian military personnel.

Bokeria’s draft bill appeared to take the Georgian leadership by
surprise. ITAR-TASS on 8 March quoted parliament speaker Burdjanadze as
telling the independent television station Rustavi-2 that parliament
should not adopt such a bill until after the expiry of the two months
agreed by Moscow and Tbilisi to try and reach a compromise. President
Mikheil Saakashvili also implicitly cautioned the parliament against
adopting the bill. He reaffirmed on 8 March Georgia’s “crystal-clear”
position that the bases should be closed, but proposed waiting to
see whether it is possible to reach an agreement with Russia within
the two month period, as did Prime Minister Noghaideli. Parliament
was scheduled to debate the draft bill on 9 March, but postponed the
debate until 10 March at Burdjanadze’s request.

On 8 March, a senior Russian military official condemned the planned
debate as an attempt at blackmail, and on 9 March the Russian Foreign
Ministry warned that the debate would make it more difficult for the
two sides to reach the hoped-for compromise agreement. “The Russian
side will shortly submit its proposals aimed at finding solutions to
existing problems,” the Foreign Ministry statement continued.

In what have may have been a deliberate leak intended to defuse
mounting tensions, on 10 March, izvestiya.ru quoted an unnamed Russian
Defense Ministry official as saying that Russia does not want to keep
the bases in Georgia forever, but their personnel will be redeployed
to the Caucasus to serve in a new mountain rifle division which will
be formed only three or four years from now. While that time frame
might appeal to the Georgian leadership — in that the bases would
theoretically have been closed prior to the expiry of Saakashvili’s
first presidential term — it may not be enough to mollify the
parliament. And that anonymous statement represents a clear retreat
from earlier Russian arguments in favor of simply renaming one or
both bases an “anti-terrorism center.”

Meanwhile, the Georgian State Employment Agency is already addressing
the problem of providing employment for the Armenians who currently
account for up to one third of the personnel at the Akhalkalaki base,
and who are already expressing unease at the prospects of losing
their livelihood in a region with few employment opportunities. The
Georgian daily “Rezonansi” on 10 March quoted the agency’s chairman,
Levan Peradze, as saying that a job-creation program is in the works,
and he suggested some of the personnel in question may find jobs
in private security services. And Goga Khachidze, who was recently
named governor of the Djavakheti region where the Akhalkalaki base
is located, pledged the same day that the Georgian leadership will
do everything possible to ensure that its closure “is painless”
for the local Armenian population.

As the Georgian authorities have failed consistently to deliver on
earlier promises to improve conditions in the remote, mountainous
and impoverished region, the Armenians are understandably skeptical.
David Rstakian, leader of the Virk party that represents the local
Armenian community, was quoted by Caucasus Press on 10 March as
saying, “The Armenians of Javakheti will do all they can to prevent
the Russian troops from leaving Akhalkalaki. If Russia refuses to
pull out its troops, it may need our help.”

That help, he implied, would be willingly offered