Interfax News Agency, Russia
May 16 2008
SAAKASHVILI JUBILANT OVER UN MOVE ON ABKHAZIA REFUGEES
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has thanked the 14 nations that
backed a Georgian-sponsored UN General Assembly resolution calling for
everyone who has fled the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia region
to be enabled to return to Abkhazia.
The resolution, which as with all resolutions passed at General
Assembly sessions is a non-binding document, was passed on Thursday by
a vote of 14 versus 11 and recognizes the right of all refugees and
internally displaced persons and their descendants, regardless of
ethnicity, to return to Abkhazia.
It is a historic document. It is through voting like this that true
friends are found out. When we need support, we get help from our
friends despite pressure from our adversaries, Saakashvili said at the
opening ceremony for an oil terminal in Kulevi, Georgia, on Friday.
Azerbaijan was among the countries that voted for the resolution.
Those that voted against included Russia, Belarus and Armenia.
It is in situations like this that true support manifests itself.
These countries, including Azerbaijan, which are opening the oil
terminal in Kulevi today, have once again affirmed their brotherly
attitude to Georgia, Saakashvili said.
The president said he was proposing that Abkhazia join the Poti and
Samegrelo economic zone in order to open even larger terminals and
build up the ports in [the Abkhaz cities of] Ochamchira and Sukhumi.
Let them think which is better, rusty Russian tanks or the development
of an economic zone, he said.
Outsiders are taking hold of the property of the 500,000 people who
have fled Abkhazia, Saakashvili said. But an end will come to this,
and the decision of the UN General Assembly is the first omen of it,
he said.
Meanwhile, the Georgian Foreign Ministry has sent a formal letter to
the CIS Executive Committee in Minsk demanding a change in the format
of the existing peacekeeping contingent in Abkhazia.
"It consists entirely of Russian troops, whereas according to the
treaty of 1994 the joint peacekeeping forces in the Abkhaz conflict
zone must consist of servicemen from the CIS countries, and we demand
that this provision be complied with," Georgian Foreign Minister
Ekaterina Tkeshelashvili said.
According to the Georgian media, Georgia would like to see
peacekeepers from Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova, which, like
Georgia, are members of the GUAM organization.
"The adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the resolution
on the return of displaced persons and refugees to Abkhazia can become
yet another recognition by this organization of the ethnic cleansing
undertaken against the Georgian population in this region,"
Tkeshelashvili also said.
"This is an important document that will secure refugees’ right to
return to Abkhazia," Tkeshelashvili said.
This resolution recognizes the rights and guarantees protection not
only to refugees but also to those ethnic Abkhaz who now live outside
the conflict zone, she said.
"There should be no legal difference between the refugees and those
who live in the conflict zone," the minister said.