Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
March 28, 2005, Monday

GEORGIA SWAPS BASES FOR APARTMENTS

SOURCE: Kommersant, March 24, 2005, p. 10

by Vladimir Novikov

Russian-Georgian consultations on the level of foreign ministries
with regard to withdrawal of Russian military bases from Batumi and
Akhalkalaki began in Moscow on March 24. The day before Georgia’s
Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili stated that incidents similar
to the incident, which happened on the Georgian-Abkhazian
administrative border, might frustrate the process of negotiations.

Mrs. Zourabichvili implied the incident which occurred in the village
of Ganmukhuri (Georgia) in the zone of Georgian-Abkhazian conflict
last Tuesday. A large group of the Russian peacekeepers entered the
village. They surrounded the building in which a unit of the Georgian
MVD’s special forces had settled, and demanded them to surrender
their weapons. They were given a refusal. UN military mediators
interfered in the situation. As a result of the talks between Russian
peacekeepers with Gigi Ugulava, governor of the Samegrelo district,
the tension was relieved.

According to Russian peacekeepers, conducting an exercise in their
responsibility area they accidentally faced a unit of the Georgian
MVD’s special forces and decided to verify the legality of its stay
there. Georgia’s Foreign Minister Vano Merabichvili stressed that
taking a Spetsnaz into the village of Ganmukhuri at request of the
local Georgians was a forced measure, because the Abkhazian police
had held a cleanup there, as a result of which locals were injured.

This incident may affect the process of talks on the problem, which
doesn’t directly concern the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict. Discussed
at the consultations are the terms and conditions of withdrawing the
Russian military bases; responsible for the Russian side is Igor
Savolsky, an ambassador on special errands, while Deputy Foreign
Minister of Georgia Merab Antadze is head of the Georgian delegation.

Tbilisi has taken the following stand: Georgia is ready to accept
withdrawal of the Russian forces within 4 years (by January 1, 2009),
with the stipulation that the troops are present “in the withdrawal
mode” during this entire period, i.e. no exercises are to be held and
no new military hardware is introduced, against the background of
personnel cutbacks. Georgia is also ready to present Russian officers
apartments in downtown Tbilisi, which they would be able to sell with
profit before their leave to Russia; this is the maximal compensation
Georgia can offer.

Besides, Georgia is ready to find $10-15 million (it hopes to get
this money from international donors) to transport the personnel and
the military equipment to Russia. Georgia’s Foreign Minister Salome
Zourabichvili thinks the figure of $300-350 million announced by
Moscow is unreal. However, most important in the position of Moscow
is not the demand for money, but the circumstance that Russia flatly
refuses to take the troops “into the withdrawal mode.” Even if Moscow
agrees to the four-year period, the Defense Ministry insists that the
bases be functioning in the common mode within this period.

Georgian experts fear that Moscow will procrastinate again and when
the timeframe elapses it would refer to resistance of locals – as is
now happening in Transnistria and might occur in Samtskhe-Dzhavakheti
(of south Georgia where a base is stationed) populated by Armenians.

Translated by Andrei Ryabochkin

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress