GEORGIA APPREHENDS KOSOVO INDEPENDENCE

PanARMENIAN.Net
08.12.2007 13:54 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Georgia appealed for the U.S. and European support
in the event that a crisis in Kosovo should spread to the Caucasus
and threaten Georgia’s territorial integrity.

"We hope our friends and allies in the west take a firm position on
the inapplicability of the Kosovo case to Georgia. In other words,
Kosovo is sui generis," Georgia’s Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze said
in an interview with the Financial Times.

He fears that if the U.S. and most European Union member-states
recognize Kosovo’s independence, Russia might retaliate by recognizing
Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Mr Gurgenidze won support for his position on Kosovo from Benita
Ferrero-Waldner, the EU’s external relations commissioner, with whom
he held talks in Brussels.

"We do hope also that Russia will understand that, certainly on
South Ossetia and Abkhazia, things should remain as they are," she
told reporters.