The Messenger, Georgia
Feb 18 2005
Refusal to lay wreath clouds Lavrov visit
Russian foreign minister angers Tbilisi on eve of Russian-Georgian
negotiations
By Anna Arzanova
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russian Federation Sergei Lavrov
expressed his hope on February 17 that his refusal to lay a wreath at
the Memorial on Heroes Square in Tbilisi for Georgians who died
fighting for the territorial integrity of Georgia will not create any
further strain in Georgian-Russian relations.
“We hope that this will not create artificial problems for the
fruitful negotiations in Tbilisi on key points of Russian-Georgian
relations,” said Lavrov, who arrives in Tbilisi on a working visit on
Friday.
“I hope that my forthcoming visit to Georgia will help clarify some
issues and make progress in our relationship,” Lavrov added.
The Russian minister’s announcement on Wednesday that he would not
lay a wreath as planned, after he had laid a wreath at the Armenian
Genocide Memorial, led Georgian officials to downgrade his visit from
an official to a working visit.
Lavrov explained that the proposal to visit the memorial was made
less than a day before his visit. Speaking with Armenian reporters on
February 16, Lavrov said that his refusal to lay a wreath at the
memorial is a result of Russia’s status as a mediator in the process
of resolving the South Ossetian and Abkhaz conflicts.
“Such a public event is hardly capable of creating a proper
atmosphere for the resumption of negotiations on resolution of the
conflicts,” he added.
The Russian minister of foreign affairs is coming to Tbilisi to
discuss the framework agreement currently being negotiated between
the two countries.
But although he noted that a lot of preliminary work had been put in
that “I hope will yet bear fruit,” Lavrov stated that Georgia is not
yet ready for such negotiations.
“Three rounds of negotiations have already taken place recently but
there are some important issues on which we cannot find a common
language. As a result we can say that the Georgian side is not ready
for negotiations,” he said.
Lavrov explained that during his meetings in Tbilisi the two sides
will have to discuss problems in the relations of the two countries,
including the process of preparing the “major” framework agreement,
the prospects for cooperation in the fight against terrorism,
military problems, the situation in the conflict zones, and so on.
“We are ready to listen to the standpoint of the Georgian side and
share our problems. I would like to believe that the coming
negotiations will be a starting point for resolving these problems,”
he added.
Officials at the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to
Lavrov’s decision not to lay a wreath at the Georgian Memorial by
saying that the wreath-laying had been included in the schedule of
the visit from the beginning and had been cancelled at the request of
the Russian authorities.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Salome Zourabichvili responded to
Lavrov’s statement at a briefing on February 16 by saying that
Georgia would not escalate the situation, despite her Russian
counterpart’s “lack of diplomatic manners.”
“We do not know what Russia wants, or what this country which comes
to us on a neighborly visit to normalize the situation needs. He does
not even have enough elementary upbringing to go to the memorial and
bow his head before the monument to those who have died,”
Zourabichvili expressed her indignation.
Zourabichvili said that during her entire diplomatic career she could
not remember such an incident when a diplomat officially invited to a
foreign country ignored the rules of diplomatic norms accepted all
over the world.
“This refusal has its meaning and we won’t forget it, but because
dialogue needs to be continued, we will receive Lavrov on a working
visit, not an official one as was planned before,” Zourabichvili
added. “This is a non-neighborly and inappropriate sign by the
Russian side.”
Commenting on this issue, leader of the parliamentarian majority MP
Maia Nadiradze positively assessed the conduct of the Georgian
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, adding that Lavrov’s decision could only
damage Russia itself.
“This is not and cannot be only Lavrov’s initiative. It is really an
expression of those politics which saturates Russia’s policy toward
Georgia. However, the most important thing in this case is how
Georgia responded to this statement,” Nadiradze said, adding that
such an incident had never before taken place in the history of
Georgia.
Chair of the parliamentarian committee for foreign affairs Kote
Gabashvili also thinks that Lavrov’s decision was a major
embarrassment to Russian diplomacy. “This is not the way diplomats
should conduct themselves. The change of the format of the visit will
affect the issues which must be discussed at the meetings,”
Gabashvili told journalists.
MP Giga Bokeria sees behind this statement the trace of ordinary
Russian politics, the basic part of which relates to the Russian
military bases located in Georgia.
“We will not take bilateral duty in our relations with Russia when we
talk about the framework agreement regarding the non-location of
bases of a third country in Georgia,” he said, referring to the
Russian demand that the agreement include a clause stating that no
other country will be permitted to deploy military bases on Georgian
soil.
About 80 veterans of the Abkhaz and the South Ossetian conflicts as
well as veterans of World War II gathered in front of the Russian
Embassy on February 17 in order to express their protest at the
decision of the Russian minister. The protesters brought wreaths to
the Embassy.
“Lavrov’s behavior was an insult to our heroes. He went to Armenia
and laid a wreath at the genocide memorial there and refused to do
the same in Georgia. That is why we came here to express our
condolences at the death of their diplomacy,” demonstrator Alexander
Tsiklauri told journalists.
According to another participant of the demonstration Andro
Cheishvili, Lavrov buried Russian diplomacy on February 16. “There is
a slogan here-we give our condolences to the death of Russian
diplomacy,” he said.
According to Black Sea Press, during his visit to Georgia, Lavrov is
going to lay a wreath to the grave of the former Georgian prime
minister Zurab Zhvania. Russian Foreign Ministry official Alexander
Yakovenko said to journalists that Zurab Zhvania had done a lot to
prevent escalation in the conflict zones in Georgia standing for
their peaceful resolution.
This demarche of the Russian minister follows an exchange of comments
between the two countries, after talks over the withdrawal of Russian
military bases from Georgia and a framework agreement failed on
February 11. After the collapsed talks, Russian Minister Lavrov
accused Georgia, on February 15, of the strain which currently exist
in bilateral relations between Georgia and Russia.
“During the talks in Tbilisi on February 10-11, [held between Russian
Foreign Ministry official Igor Savolski and Deputy Foreign Minister
Merab Antadze] we understood that Georgia was not ready to discuss
some issues and has even make concessions on some others,” the news
agency RIA Novosti reports Lavrov as saying on February 15.
“Not only the Foreign Ministries of the two countries but also the
Georgian and Russian Security
Councils have joined the process. I believe that there was a chance
to achieve mutually acceptable formulas on the provisions of the key
Agreement that had not been agreed yet,” he noted.
Negotiations on the issue held on Friday, February 11 were intended
as preparation for further talks during Lavrov’s visit, when the
creation of a joint antiterrorist center in Georgia will also be
discussed, but the negotiations fell through, and the two sides are
still unable to agree the main aspects of a framework agreement.
The Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs accuses the Russian
delegation of causing the negotiations to fail, while the Russian
side for its part accuses Georgia of side-stepping the issue of
setting up anti-terrorism centers.
“We tried to find all compromise formulations, but finally there was
a situation where variants were offered which put under doubt the
possibility of the creation of the anti-terrorist centers,” Russian
Foreign Ministry official Igor Savolski stated.
Deputy Foreign Minister of Georgia Merab Antadze issued a similar
message, telling journalists after the negotiations that
unfortunately, despite the serious efforts and compromises of the
Georgia side, the Russian side was not prepared to reach an
agreement, because of which the negotiations failed.