SERGEY IVANOV: RUSSIA NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CONFLICTS ON POST-SOVIET SPACE

Public Radio, Armenia
Oct 11 2006

Russia carries no responsibility for the frozen conflicts on
post-Soviet space, RF Deputy Premier, Defense Minister Sergey
Ivanov told the journalists. "As for the conflicts on the territory
of the former USSR, we have not initiated these and we carry no
responsibility, we are the guarantor of settlement," said Ivanov in
response to the question whether Russia may recognize the independence
of Abkhazia and South Ossetia because of the strained relations
with Georgia.

"It means that the two parties of the conflict, e.g. Moldova and
Transniestria, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Georgia and Abkhazia, Georgia
and Abkhazia, Georgia and South Ossetia, should somehow speak to each
other," RF Deputy Prime Minister noted. He said that the process is
different in case of different conflicts. Ivanov remarked that the
existence of frozen conflicts on former USSR territory is the result
of collapse of the Soviet Union.