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Georgia, Russia tiptoe toward partial restoration of ties
TBILISI |
TBILISI (Reuters) - Russia and Georgia set out a blueprint for the partial restoration of ties at their first direct talks about bilateral relations since the former Soviet republics fought a five-day war in 2008, the Georgian negotiator said on Saturday.
Russia and Georgia severed diplomatic ties due to the war, which followed years of tension over Moscow's support for two rebel regions and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's drive to bring his nation into NATO, and trade all but dried up.
Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose coalition beat Saakashvili's long-ruling party in an October 1 parliamentary election, says he wants to mend ties with Moscow while maintaining warm relations with the United States and Europe.
"We defined those issues that we plan to start negotiations about: trade, humanitarian and cultural ties and restoration of regular flights between the two countries," Zurab Abashidze, Ivanishvili's envoy for relations with Russia, told reporters.
At the meeting on Friday, held in Geneva and mediated by Switzerland, the countries agreed to continue talks on regular basis, he said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said the representatives "exchanged views on possible ways to normalize relations between Russian and Georgia in specific spheres."
Georgia is eager to revive trade with Russia, which banned imports of Georgian wine and mineral water, two of its main products, as tensions increased two years before the war.
Restoration of diplomatic ties is not yet on the agenda, and Russia has made clear it will give no ground on the issue of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two breakaway Georgian regions it recognized as independent nations after the war.
Russian forces crushed a Georgian assault on South Ossetia in August 2008 and drove toward Tbilisi, pulling back after a cease-fire brokered by the European Union. Each accuses the other of starting the conflict.
Russia and Georgia have held talks in recent years on issues related to Russia's entry into the World Trade Organisation and to the breakaway regions, but not on bilateral ties.
(Reporting by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Steve Gutterman and Jason Webb)
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That means such conflicts are supposed to either (1) convince the West that the “former” Soviet Empire is truly fractured even if the West didn’t believe in the “collapse” of the USSR. In other words, Georgia may still be run by Communists, as the West knows, but they are no longer united with Russia under the LRP; (2) motivate the West to support one country economically, in this case Georgia, which wouldn’t be the case if there wasn’t a “split” between Georgia and Russia; and (3) a combination of 1 and 2.
One must analyze everything coming out of the “former” USSR/East Bloc under the knowledge that Marxists are still in control there, and that the prime directive in this present historical era for all Marxists is the defeat of the West.
How do you get an internet connection in the Mental Hospital where you live??
You are a worthless Cold Warrior lunatic and you should be stopped from posting on this website.
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