Interfax Russia
June 6 2008

Matthew Bryza: We are trying to develop a peace plan attractive to
both Georgia and Abkhazia

What is the U.S. goal and what do you expect to achieve at this Minsk
Group meeting?

It’s not just a U.S. goal, it’s the joint goal of the Minsk group and
its co-chairs the U.S., Russia, and France. The goal of this meeting
is to give the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan a chance to meet
each other, get to know each other, first in formalist, and hopefully
build some trust between each other so that they can resume the talks
that have been going on for the last three years and have gotten quite
close to a framework peace agreement for Karabakh.

The main interest of Russian media is what is going on in Georgia and
Abkhazia. Can you outline U.S. interests in Georgia?

Right now what we are trying to do this work with our partners in
Russia and in Georgia and in Abkhazia to get the Abkhaz and Georgians
to be able to talk directly, face to face, to develop peace plan that
is attractive to both sides. To do that we need to start with the UN
Friends Process and use every possible opportunity there to reduce
tensions and build confidence as the UN Friends process aims to do
and, essentially, a grouping that aims to implement the 1994 cease
fire agreement and also implement confidence building measures.

We need to even go beyond that now, and make sure there is a way for
the Georgians and Abkhaz to develop their own peace plan and then
receive support from the international community when that peace plan
is further formulated. That’s why I’m here today, to try to discuss
how to make that happen.

What’s the official U.S. position on the movements of Russian railway
construction troops into Abkhazia?

That it’s unhelpful and runs against the direction I just outlined,
which is to try to get the Abkhaz and Georgians to talk to each other
directly and elaborate a peace plan with us, the international
community, supporting such efforts. I think we were close to a real
breakthrough in the process in a positive way.

I think what the Georgians needed to move forward was simply a sign
that recent military steps and the increase of Russian military troops
would be reversed and that any steps taken by Russia with regard to
Abkhazia would be coordinated with the Georgian government. It’s not
asking so much – return those that came in recently – and, most
importantly, consult with the Georgian government. What happened is
the opposite, more soldiers were introduced without any consultation
with the Georgians, and such steps – moving military forces into
another country – is highly disruptive and undermines any semblance of
trust.

The Russian side insists that this was done within the Framework of
the agreement with Georgia and it doesn’t violate previous agreements
with Georgia.

I do not know who said that but if they said that

It’s the MFA statement yesterday.

I did not see it, but what you’ve just told me absolutely lacks any
factual basis; it is totally untrue. There was no consultation with
the Georgian government, none at all, and there is no agreement that
allows unilateral movement of another country’s military forces into
sovereign Georgian territory. These are not peacekeepers, they are
construction troops. No one is even pretending that they are
peacekeepers. There is absolutely no framework to allow that to
happen.

What’s the official U.S. position on Georgia’s demand to withdraw
Russian peacekeepers from the zone of conflict and transform this
operation from a military to police operation? How much is
U.S. prepared to take part in this police operation?

I did not know that the Georgians had formally demanded that the CIS
peacekeepers leave. Did that happen in the last couple of days, or was
there only talk about it?

There was talk about it.

We stated repeatedly in UN Security Council resolutions our
recognition that the peacekeepers have played a constructive role. The
Georgians do not agree with that, but the UN Security Council said
that there is some utility in being there. The utility is that they
provided the Abkhaz a sense of security. And it’s important for the
Abkhaz to have a sense of security because without that there can
never be a peace agreement. So, we need to find ways to make sure
that the Abkhaz and all the populations in Abkhazia feel safe,
especially of course ethnic Abkhaz.

There is also a Georgian population in Galy district, and we want the
ethnic Georgian population to increase because part of any settlement
would require the return of internally displaced persons, that’s how
you get to a political settlement. Now in the Galy district those
residents who are ethnically Georgian do not feel safe. The level of
criminality is dangerous and unacceptable, there are bands of bandits
and they terrorize the population. The CIS peacekeepers’ mandate does
not cover law enforcement and protection of individual citizens
anywhere in Abkhazia including in the Galy district.

There needs to be something, some sort of a police force there in Galy
that can function. The Abkhaz police are not doing the job, I don’t
know if it’s by design or it’s just due to lack of capacity. Georgian
police on their own can’t do the job, so something else needs to
happen. It could be a joint Abkhaz-Georgian police force with
international trainers; it could be an international police force.

As far U.S. participation is concerned, it’s not something we’ve
thought about in much detail. We don’t need to have our people there;
we have no interest in being there. Perhaps we need to make some
contribution just to carry our weight, but we have no desire to insert
our people in that situation.

Russians are very concerned about why the U.S. is providing so much
military assistance to Georgia. Could you please explain?

I’d like to know what the Russian side thinks the big military
assistance is. I’ve seen a lot of reports that never detail what this
assistance is, and I think there is a high degree of ignorance about
what is actually happening.

The statistics I’ve seen indicate that Georgia is the biggest
recipient of U.S. assistance in the region as far as ammunitions,
weapons and training.

I don’t know what that means. We had a train and equip program that
the Russians know every detail of. We briefed them on it, they know
what we provided in terms of ammunition and weaponry, which were
Kalashnikovs overwhelmingly. We developed that program because Russia
asked for some capability in the Pankisi Gorge to remove the Arab
terrorists that were there and Chechen fighters. We developed that
program and it was successful back in 2002. Again, we were absolutely
transparent. The Russian government knows exactly what was there. It
is disingenuous and false and unhelpful if someone now is claiming
that the Americans are arming the Georgians further. That’s
ridiculous. We’re not.

But still there is a very common perception that you are. There is the
impression that the Americans are giving weapons to Georgians to
prepare for a military operation against Abkhazia.

There is a long tradition in this country of people saying untrue
things in the media to try to create tension. That’s what is happening
with those reports. They are absolutely made up. We don’t need people
falsely creating tension.

What we do have is a strong program of cooperation with soldiers in
Georgia that we have helped become professional, that have traveled
and are in Iraq fighting with us right now. They have the third
largest contingent of any country in the world in Iraq with us. We are
grateful for that, we need them there. At the same time, the Georgians
are acquiring other weapons and ammunition, not with our assistance,
not with any of our money, and often not with our knowledge. But they
are a sovereign state, they have the right to arm themselves.

They are buying [inaudible] in Israel.

They can buy them anywhere they want. There are a lot of Russian
businessmen doing that business in Israel. If people are worried about
it, then they can stop it. Your own businessmen can stop it. In any
case, Georgia has a sovereign right to arm itself, to have a viable
military. Russia has a sovereign right to do so as well. We all have a
sovereign right. However, there is no military solution to the
Abkhazia conflict. We do make that very clear to our Georgia friends:
no war.

That means that the United States never encouraged a Georgian military
operation in that area?

That would be correct and that would be an understatement. We have
made very clear to our Georgian friends that there is no prospect of
success through a military operation in Abkhazia. Quite the contrary,
a military operation would be destructive to this peace process that
we are trying to start up, that is viable, and that promises a
positive way forward for all concerned parties.

Would you say at this point in time that Georgia and Abkhazia are on
the verge of a military conflict?

I hope not. Our job as diplomats is to reduce the risk of any military
conflict. I believe that when there are uncoordinated unilateral
actions taken, such as Georgia suspends its unmanned aerial vehicle
flights after there are complaints from the Abkhaz and the Russians,
and the next day Russia responds by sending in more soldiers to
reinforce the railroad without consulting with the Georgians that
raises the risk of war. That makes it harder for us in the
international community to convince the Georgians that the situation
is actually getting calmer and that there is a chance to work out a
peaceful political settlement with Abkhazia. What I am saying is that
we were getting things under control. This action last Saturday raised
tension again, but I think that working together we can definitely
bring the risk of war back down.

Are you trying to say that the United States is trying to calm the
Georgian side in this conflict?

The United States is trying to bring the Abkhaz and the Georgians
together so that they will agree on a peace plan that will reduce or
eliminate the threat of war. That’s what we’re trying to do. That’s
why I’m here in Moscow, to elicit the cooperation of our Russian
colleagues to do the same thing. We are making clear to our colleagues
and friends in Georgia that we don’t believe there is any way a
military solution can be found to this conflict.

The U.S. position on Georgian membership in NATO is well
known. However, Georgia doesn’t fit NATO standards, it has ethnic
conflicts on its territory and it’s very questionable whether Georgia
fits the standards of democracy that NATO members are held to. Why is
the U.S. supporting such an exception for Georgia?

It’s not an exception. Georgia does adhere to the democratic standards
of candidate countries for NATO. It has more work to do; it’s not a
member of NATO, and we’re not talking about membership in NATO around
the corner. There is time and there is a need for Georgian democratic
reforms to continue. But I simply do not share the assessment that
Georgia is falling way short. It has work to do, but not to the point
that we would be making an exception for Georgia by offering the
Membership Action Plan. It qualifies for the Membership Action Plan –
full stop – on democracy and on security reform and should be in.

When it comes to the evolution of its military, it will take
time. That is happening; the reforms are moving forward right
now. When it comes to conflicts, it is a false argument to say that a
country with unresolved ethnic conflicts on its territory should not
become a member of NATO. There are several countries in NATO now that
still have unresolved ethnic conflicts and there is one in particular
that was a divided country when it became a member of NATO. So those
are false arguments. It’s a red herring as we say in colloquial
English.

However, we want to do everything possible to resolve these conflicts
peacefully and politically, not because of NATO, but because of our
shared interests in this region. Nobody in Russia who is reasonable
wants there to be war in Abkhazia or South Ossetia. It’s terrible for
the entire Caucasus region, terrible in terms of stability regionally,
terrible in terms of the prospects of what is going to be a
spectacular Olympics in Sochi, no body wants conflict to emerge, we
all should be working together to reduce the level of tension.

Why is the U.S. so actively supporting the construction of pipelines
which bypass Russia?

Let’s flip it around: why is Russia so active in trying to control
every single pipeline which goes to Europe? Why is that? Its obvious
why: pipeline companies are monopolies by law, and monopolies behave
that way, they want to control everything, and there is nothing evil
in that, that’s just the laws of nature. Which is why in the beginning
of the 20th Century, the U.S. Government broke up our big energy
monopoly at the time, Standard Oil.

The answer, after I turned the question around, is we believe that our
national security is best served when market function efficiently.
Monopolies undermine market efficiency, and create distortions, in
this case in Europe’s natural gas market. The goal is not to bypass
Russia; Russia is thank goodness the largest single supplier of gas to
Europe right now, 25% of all the gas consumed in Europe comes from
Gazprom. We want that volume of gas to increase from Gazprom, but we
don’t want the percentage to increase because we want there to be more
competition.

Competition leads to efficiency, economic efficiency strengthens the
economies of our friends, stronger economies of our friends
strengthens our national security. It’s actually that simple. So
there’s got to be a way to make everybody happy, where Gazprom
continues to prosper, where Gazprom invests in its own gas production
in Russia rather than in acquiring as many assets as possible,
downstream in Europe, and where there is competition that ensure
Gazprom will have to play by those market rules. That’s all we want
to see. Competition.

So there is no specific anti-Russian intention?

There is no anti-Russian intention in as much as

You’re not playing the anti-Russian card?

It is folly to think that somehow the gas that Gazprom provides to
Europe could be replaced. That will never happen. Russia will always
have the largest natural gas reserves in the world, and its preferred
market will be Europe. We want to make sure that relationship is
based on market rather than monopoly forces. We are absolutely not
playing an anti-Russian card. In the beginning of this administration
we did everything we could to try to have a strategic partnership with
Russia based on energy, but it didn’t work out so well. But we still
have good relations.

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