BREAKTHROUGH IN GEORGIA-RUSSIA NEGOTIATIONS ON TROOP WITHDRAWAL
By Vladimir Socor

Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
Jamestown Foundation
June 3 2005

Friday, June 3, 2005

On May 30 in Moscow, Ministers of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov
and Salome Zourabichvili signed a Joint Statement regarding the
“cessation of functioning” of Russian military bases and other
installations and withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgia. In this
document, the Russian side renounces some major, long-held positions,
accepts a timetable and benchmarks for troop withdrawal until 2008,
and abandons its extravagant demands for financial compensation that
had been designed to postpone the withdrawal indefinitely.

Thus, the document marks a decisive breakthrough in the negotiations
(see EDM, March 14, 15, May 9) and is a major success for Georgian
policy and diplomacy. Nevertheless, the text opens some potential
loopholes in follow-up agreements that Moscow can use down the road
to obstruct the Joint Statement’s implementation.

Timetable. Russia is to hand over its bases and installations to the
Georgian side and evacuate its forces from Georgia according to the
following schedule:

Handover of the Tbilisi armor repair plant by June 15, 2005; handover
of the Zvezda and Kojori communications relay stations (in the environs
of Tbilisi) and other, unnamed installations by September 1, 2005;
evacuation of at least 40 armored vehicles, including at least 20
tanks, also by September 1, 2005; handover of further installations,
according to a mutually agreed list, in two stages, by January 1,
2006 and October 1, 2007; evacuation of heavy weaponry, including CFE
Treaty-Limited Equipment, from the Akhalkalaki base by the end of 2006;
complete withdrawal of forces from Akhalkalaki and partial withdrawal
from Batumi by October 1, 2007; extension possible until the end of
2007 if weather conditions are unfavorable (this is understood to
refer to convoying of equipment from Batumi by sea to Russia); and
completion of the withdrawal from Batumi, along with closure of the
Tbilisi headquarters of Russia’s Group of Forces in the Transcaucasus,
“in the course of 2008.”

“Withdrawal Mode.” From the moment of the agreement’s signing,
Russia’s bases in Batumi and Akhalkalaki shall “function in a
withdrawal mode,” curtailing military training and preparing for
evacuation of equipment and personnel. Georgia shall allow Russia
temporarily to send in additional military specialists to those
bases with a view to facilitating the transport of equipment and
personnel out of Georgia. The immovable property is to be handed
over to Georgian authorities “in its existing condition” (i.e.,
not deliberately wrecked, as was done at the Vaziani base in 2001).
Russian military personnel may opt for leaving the service to stay
permanently in Georgia as civilian residents, along with their family
dependents. In such cases, Georgia shall guarantee their title to
the dwellings they currently inhabit.

Residual Presence, “Anti-Terrorist Center.” Under separate agreements
to be concluded, Russia shall use the Zvezda station jointly with
Georgia and continue using the Kojori station exclusively for an
unspecified period of time. The Gonio training range, attached to
the Batumi base, shall be handed over to Georgian jurisdiction on
September 1, 2005, to be jointly used by the two sides under a separate
agreement. Some personnel and some installations of the Batumi base are
to be used for setting up a Georgian-Russian Anti-Terrorist Center,
again under a separate agreement to be negotiated (no timeframe
mentioned for such negotiations).

In recent months, the Russian side had sought to re-label the Batumi
and Akhalkalaki bases as “anti-terrorist centers” and retain sizeable
garrisons with heavy weaponry at both bases, as well as to create an
“anti-terrorist center” in Tbilisi, and conclude agreements with
Georgia on this matter prior to the start of troop withdrawal. The
Georgian side would only agree to creating one such center, under
Georgian sovereignty, without troops and weaponry, and authorizing it
to perform analytical functions only. Once the withdrawal of Russian
forces begins in earnest — as Georgia successfully insisted — ahead
of negotiations on the “anti-terrorist center,” Russia will lose its
leverage to pressure Georgia on this issue.

Financing. The sides shall “jointly seek supplementary funding from
external sources to cover transport expenditures in the course
of withdrawal.” With this, Russia renounces its earlier demand
for hundreds of millions of dollars to finance the relocation and
accommodation of its forces in Russia. The formulation in the document
makes clear that any external financing would only relate to withdrawal
of forces from Georgia’s territory, not their rebasing in Russia;
and that the withdrawal is in no sense conditional on such assistance.

Gudauta. The Joint Statement vaguely says that a German-led
inspection will help determine whether Russia has fulfilled its
obligations regarding the Gudauta army and air force base. Under the
1999-adapted CFE Treaty and Istanbul Commitments, Russia was to have
closed Gudauta in 2001. In the event, Russia only reduced its force
there, but retains the base and seeks to legalize this situation in
order to claim compliance with this part of its 1999 obligations.
Legalization would, in turn, remove a hurdle to international
ratification of the adapted CFE Treaty, through which Moscow hopes
to place constraints on forces stationed in the Baltic states.

Transit. Russia and Georgia shall in the course of 2005 reach an
agreement on “transit in the interest of Russia’s Ministry of Defense
through Georgia’s territory in compliance with international law.”
Such wording may refer to Russian weaponry to be relocated from
Georgia to Armenia as a short-term arrangement, part of the evacuation
of Russian forces from Georgia. But it would also apply to Russian
troops and materiel moving between Russia and Armenia across Georgia
as a long-term arrangement, for rotation and supply of Russian forces
in Armenia or arms deliveries to Armenia. Russia clearly wants the
latter type of arrangement.

Legal Effect. The Joint Statement is not legally binding. However, it
has the political value of committing Russia publicly to withdrawing
its forces from Georgia by a certain date and even to observing
intermediate deadlines and benchmarks. Moreover, the Joint Statement
goes a long way toward predetermining in Georgia’s favor the content of
a legally binding Agreement, to be finalized “in the nearest future,”
on the time-table and modalities of the functioning and withdrawal
of Russian forces from Georgia.

While the document’s content clearly meets Georgia’s interests,
the procedures associated with the planned Agreement and its legal
implications pose some risks. Thus, the Joint Statement envisages that
the Agreement will legalize Russia’s military presence in Georgia,
even ensuring troop rotations from Russia, pending the withdrawal;
and that the Agreement will be packaged together with an agreement
to set up the “anti-terrorist center(s).”

It is understood (though not stipulated) that the Agreement will
involve Georgian authorization for “temporary deployment” of Russian
heavy weaponry over and above CFE Treaty ceilings; and that the
Agreement will necessitate parliamentary ratification — a process
that Russia’s Duma knows well how to misuse at the government’s
behest. Thus, Moscow will retain significant means to drag out the
troop withdrawal, circumvent its obligations, or add conditions to
its fulfillment of the Joint Statement’s and the Agreement’s terms.
Close international attention is necessary in order to ensure
scrupulous observance of the withdrawal timeframe and other commitments
stipulated by the Joint Statement as signed, without awaiting follow-up
documents that may be negotiated and signed down the road.