Russian paper analyses Putin’s meeting with separatist leaders
Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Moscow
7 Apr 05
The clandestine meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and
the leaders of the two unrecognized republic’s of South Ossetia and
Abkhazia last week was an unprecedented event and will have
interesting consequences for relations with Georgia, the Russian
newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes. According to an Abkhaz official,
the leaders discussed the peaceful settlement of the conflicts between
the two separatist republics and Georgia, of which they are legally
part. Tbilisi said news of the meeting came as no great surprise and
was symptomatic of Moscow’s ambivalent attitude towards its southern
neighbour. The following is the text of the report by the Russian
newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 7 April. Subheadings have been added
editorially:
Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin received the president of
Abkhazia, Sergey Bagapsh, and president of South Ossetia, Eduard
Kokoiti, at his Bocharov Ruchey residence in Sochi last Tuesday [5
April]. It was an entirely closed, effectively secret meeting: Its
participants declined to confirm or deny the very fact of the
tripartite talks.
Hushed-up talks
As Nezavisimaya Gazeta managed to ascertain, the meeting with the
unrecognized republics’ leaders was held in the second half of the day
virtually immediately after the completion of the Russian president’s
conversation with [EU High Representative for Common Foreign and
Security Policy] Javier Solana. However, there were no official
reports on the issue: Even employees of the leading news agencies were
asked to leave the residence. The duration of the meeting, let alone
the agenda of the talks, remained a mystery. No mention of the evening
event could be seen on the Kremlin’s official website the following
day. Nor did we manage to obtain any comments on the issue from the
presidential press service.
The presidents of the unrecognized republics themselves avoided making
any comments. The telephones of Bagapsh and Kokoiti suddenly “went out
of service” and remained out of service for a long time. Having said
that, some details of the Sochi meeting did surface yesterday,
although, as the Abkhaz president’s press secretary Kristian Bzhania
told Nezavisimaya Gazeta on the phone, “the very fact of Vladimir
Putin’s talks with Sergey Bagapsh and Eduard Kokoiti, indeed, was not
initially published”.
“It had been agreed that it would be an entirely closed meeting – no
comments and no coverage. Unfortunately, the information was somehow
leaked. Basically, we have to justify our actions now; we had to
disseminate a short official commentary on Wednesday [6 April],”
Bagapsh’s press secretary told Nezavisimaya Gazeta. According to him,
the meeting with Putin “was not planned in advance”. Negotiations
between the Abkhaz and South Ossetian presidents took place in Sochi
on Tuesday [5 April]. Bagapsh and Kokoiti were unexpectedly invited to
Bocharov Ruchey in the second half of the day,” Kristian Bzhania
said. He also read out the text of the official commentary released by
the Abkhaz president’s press service, according to which “prospects
for the peaceful settlement of the Georgian-Abkhaz and Georgian-South
Ossetian conflicts and issues of socioeconomic support for Russian
Federation citizens residing in Abkhazia were discussed during the
meeting”. The commentary also stated that “republic of Abkhazia leader
Sergey Bagapsh highly values the results of the meeting”. Bagapsh’s
spokesman attributed the brevity of the commentary to the fact that
Abkhazia “does not want to expose the Russian side” and hinted that “a
relevant request” had been received from Russia.
As regards South Ossetia, it did not comment in any way on the Sochi
meeting and has not even confirmed that the meeting took place.
Unprecedented event
It was an unprecedented event in Moscow’s relations with the
unrecognized republics. Admittedly, Putin met absolutely publicly with
the then Abkhaz president, Raul Khadzhimba, in Sochi last autumn. Back
then, however, everything happened sort-of spontaneously: Abkhaz World
War II veterans invited the Russian president to their meeting, and
Khadzhimba happened to be there “by chance”.
There were no “chances” this time around. Statements that Putin’s
meeting with the leaders of the unrecognized republics, which legally
are part of Georgia, was “unplanned” do not fully correspond to
reality. It was prepared in advance. Abkhazia’s foreign minister,
Sergey Shamba, made a chance remark to this effect in his interview
with Nezavisimaya Gazeta. Speaking about a hypothetical meeting
between incumbent Abkhaz leader Sergey Bagapsh and Georgian President
Mikheil Saakashvili, Shamba stated: “This kind of meeting, in addition
attended by South Ossetia’s president, Eduard Kokoiti, could have been
held in Sochi the other day, mediated by Russian Federation President
Vladimir Putin. Unfortunately, Tbilisi did not express any interest
in this opportunity.”
Meanwhile, Tbilisi showed heightened interest in the 5 April
negotiations between the Russian president and the leaders of Abkhaz
and South Ossetian separatists in Tbilisi. As Nezavisimaya Gazeta was
told at the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “the country’s
foreign policy department will present Moscow with an extremely sharp
protest note as early as Wednesday night [6 April].” Georgian
Minister of State for Conflict Settlement Giorgi Khaindrava also
expressed official Tbilisi’s standpoint on the meeting before his
departure to Geneva to attend a Georgian-Abkhaz meeting under the
auspices of the Group of Friends of the UN Secretary-General for
Georgia. “The very fact of the Russian president’s meeting with the
separatist leaders is nothing sensational for us,” he stated. “We have
repeatedly seen that Russia, on the one hand, sort of supports
Georgia’s territorial integrity and even pledges its friendship to
Georgia, but, on the other hand, supports separatist movements in
every possible way. The only new thing is that this is now done at
the highest, presidential level.”
Interesting consequences
All the indications are that the Sochi meeting will have interesting
consequences. Having said that, these consequences can already be
seen: On Tuesday evening, the Georgian authorities banned the flight
of a Russian A-50 radar surveillance military plane through the
country’s airspace. The plane was heading for Armenia to take part in
a major exercise held by the Russian air force. The Russian military
interpreted Tbilisi’s actions as unfriendly. However, President
Saakashvili immediately stated harshly that he “does not quite
understand” the Russian side’s complaints. “Georgia is a country of
the law. Everything is regulated within legal boundaries and,
naturally, we cannot allow foreign aircraft to fly over our country
whenever they want,” he said when commenting on the incident over the
Russian military plane. He then linked it to the problem of Russian
military bases in Georgia. According to Saakashvili, these kinds of
situations will recur in Russian-Georgian relations until a specific
decision to withdraw the bases has been made. “Negotiations are
currently under way between Georgia and Russia on the dates and terms
for the withdrawal of the Russian military bases still stationed on
Georgian territory. The Russian military have stayed in Georgia for
around 200 years without any legal grounds. It is probably more than
enough. It is now time to move on to a more civilized form of
relations. We are discussing with Russia how to achieve a civilized
solution to the military bases problem. We suggested its
stage-by-stage withdrawal and offered it various transit rights, but
everything has to be done in a package. The first round of
negotiations took place on 3 April; the second round will take place
from 7 to 8 April, and I hope that we will soon get some clarity on
the issue.” The Georgian leader implied that the exact dates for the
liquidation of the Batumi and Akhalkalaki bases would soon be
announced. Nobody in Tbilisi doubts that the bases will be withdrawn.