Foreign Minister Lavrov: The question has two dimensions. Probably the first concerns global security, first and foremost security in the Euro-Atlantic region, of which the Caucasus is part and parcel. As to global Euro-Atlantic security, we strongly believe that not only owing to what has occurred in the Caucasus, but also given recent developments – I mean the hurried expansion of NATO and the creation of new foreign military bases virtually close to Russia’s borders and the third missile defense site and other factors – it is simply necessary for all to ponder over what kind of world we live in and what rules we abide by. Although Russia does not claim truth in its last instance, we strive to encourage discussion. This was the exact aim of the proposal put forward on June 5 in Berlin by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for a pan-European summit to agree on the ground rules for work on a Euro-Atlantic security Treaty. It remains valid, and, judging from our contacts with major powers, we feel there is a growing interest in commencing such a frank and honest conversation.

The second aspect of your question is Caucasian regional security proper. After the aggression which the Georgian leadership unleashed against South Ossetia, after the exposure of the plans for a similar blitzkrieg against Abkhazia, which the documents found by Abkhaz structures in the Kodori Valley confirm 100 percent, after all this an understanding also grows of the need to do something with all this. So far, the search in this direction goes, I would say, blindly. There is the initiative of Turkey to create a Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform. Other countries are coming up with similar ideas. There is the European Union’s interest in concretizing in this context its strategy along these lines. And of course there is the agreement for resolving the crisis that arose after Georgia’ aggression against South Ossetia, the agreement of Presidents Medvedev and Sarkozy, which apart from directly addressing the military tasks, contains an item about the commencement on October 15 of an international discussion of stability and security arrangements in the region. We are ready for such discussion. Of course, it must proceed from the new realities, from the fact of the declaration of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and from the fact of the recognition of this independence by the Russian Federation. Therefore any debate that one way or another presupposes discussion of security issues in the Caucasus cannot, in our deep conviction, be held without the participation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The same concerns the discussion in the UN or OSCE of issues related to the further presence of international peacekeepers in this region.

Question: As was announced, one of the themes of the present talks is the establishment of embassies. In this connection it is interesting to learn whether the candidature for the post of Russian ambassador in Abkhazia has been chosen and can the name of Abkhazia’s future ambassador in Moscow be already called?

Foreign Minister Lavrov (speaks after Bagapsh): I can only confirm what Sergey Vasilyevich said. Our candidature has been chosen and submitted for consideration by the President. I hope you will soon learn this surname officially. And I would like to at once express gratitude to Sergey Vasilyevich Bagapsh and all his colleagues for the attention they pay to the equipment of the Russian embassy in Sukhum. Concrete proposals for the buildings and area already exist and we agreed to soon carry out an inspection on the ground with experts to determine optimal variants.

Question: What do you think are the further prospects for international recognition of Abkhazia? Right now, the part of the Medvedev-Sarkozy agreement concerning international observers from the European Union meets mixed interpretation. Could you clarify if the international observers will perform their functions on the territory of Abkhazia proper?

Foreign Minister Lavrov: As to the first part of your question, this is not the chief aim, not for Russia at the least. For ourselves, we drew an unambiguous conclusion after everything that occurred, after all those developments since 1991, when Georgia’s president, Mr. Gamsakhurdia, straightforwardly urged that all Ossetians be deported to Russia, straightforwardly urged that the territory where the Abkhaz live be limited and the autonomy of Adzharia abolished, declaring that only the titular nation, that is Georgians, should possess priority rights and should exercise their sovereignty over the entire territory, followed up later by concrete armed actions; after these actions were brought to a halt; after the UN- and OSCE- sanctified agreements were periodically violated for fifteen years, always by the Georgian side, which kept departing from all the accords; and after the peacefully sleeping city of Tskhinval came under armed attack on the night of August 7-8 – it became definitively clear to Russia that there was no way to ensure the security and the very survival of the Abkhaz and South Ossetian peoples other than recognizing their independence and taking, at their request, these peoples under the protection of the Russian Federation.

You know that it was not the first time that such requests had come in to Moscow from Sukhum and Tskhinval and Russia in this case very patiently addressed the situation, did not want to take any abrupt moves and tried all these years to find a solution within the principle of Georgia’s territorial integrity. But what occurred on the night of August 7-8 meant that the Tbilisi regime itself gave up on Georgia’s territorial integrity. Therefore we did not act the way we did to announce solemnly later in some place from international rostrums the number of countries recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Either from the viewpoint of international law or from the viewpoint of morality or from a pragmatic point of view we had no other choice, since to leave everything as it was would have meant only that we would have had to constantly keep Russian military units on the combat alert within Russian territory so they could at any moment come to the aid of the Abkhaz and South Ossetians. Whichever standpoint you take, there was no alternative. As to recognition, this is not the most important thing. Each country makes its choice by proceeding from its own interests, and with each passing day, we see understanding growing in the world for the actions of Abkhazia, for the actions of South Ossetia and the actions of Russia. That not everyone is saying this aloud, and that not everyone is ready to acknowledge the realities is another matter. But they exist: there is no way back, and I am convinced that the acknowledgement of these realities is only going to widen.

Question: Esteemed Sergey Viktorovich, today your aircraft landed at the airfield in Sukhum, and this was the first civilian flight in the last fifteen years. When do you think normal air service can be resumed between Moscow and Sukhum?

Foreign Minister Lavrov: I for the first time landed on a plane in Sukhum in my waking life and simply do not remember any previous landing on account of nonage. And after the present landing as a passenger I can state that the airfield, from my point of view, is fully ready to receive any types of aircraft. Hopefully their number is only going to increase.

Question: Esteemed Sergey Viktorovich, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is arriving in Tbilisi tomorrow while you at this moment are making a trip to Abkhazia. How can you comment on this? Are there any parallels here? Sergey Bagapsh has made a statement on the question of the return of refugees. Could you comment on it in greater detail?

Foreign Minister Lavrov: Honestly speaking, I do not track the movements of the NATO Secretary General. One way or another, they reach me, the statements he makes, statements which are inappropriate for the leader of such a serious organization which claims a global role in the area of security. To make statements on behalf of NATO that fully ignore the facts is, to say the least, not very responsible. As to my sojourn in Sukhum and visit to Tskhinval tomorrow, there is no link here. The schedule of my contacts with Abkhazia and South Ossetia in no way correlates with the movements of Mr. Scheffer.

As to the question of refugees, it also figures in the Medvedev-Sarkozy agreement. One of the questions to be discussed at the international debate slated for October 15 will be that of the return of refugees. This agreement formulates it very clearly: discussion of the question of refugee return having regard to internationally recognized norms and practice of post-conflict settlement. The practice of post-conflict settlement, of which Sergey Vasilyevich now spoke in great detail, presumes that before being able to talk about the return of all refugees it is necessary that the wounds of war should be healed and it is necessary that trust be restored, which has been heavily undermined by the aggression against Tskhinval and the preparation of similar aggression against Abkhazia. We will take all this into account.

You probably know, since I have already happened to speak about this, what the fate of Serb refugees from Kosovo now is; let alone Palestinian refugees because everybody knows their saga. So this is really a very complicated question, and Mikhail Nikolayevich Saakashvili himself in an interview, when he vowed and swore that he would never use force to settle the conflicts, explained why he never intended to do it: he said that blood is remembered in the Caucasus not even for decades, but for centuries. In general, he himself largely set the timeframe. And the last point that I would like to make. We pay special attention to the issues of interethnic harmony and interethnic peace; firstly, because this is very important for the Russian Federation itself, and secondly, it is important for Abkhazia where many nationalities live. In the treaty on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance which we will sign with Abkhazia at the highest level in the next few days, a special chapter is dedicated to the mutual pledges of the sides to do everything to ensure that any national groups, any ethnoses, any peoples on the territory of the high contracting parties feel comfortable. Both we and Abkhazia proceed from the lofty norms of international law, to which we subscribe.

Question: After the recognition of Abkhazia you are the first to come from among the Russian leadership. Could you share your impressions? And my second question. There are no borders among the European states, for a long time now. Why then do we need a border between Russia and Abkhazia if Russian people live on both sides of it?

Foreign Minister Lavrov: Regarding my impressions, you know, they are very good. Firstly, I feel at home here, and this partly answers your second question. Secondly, I see a beautiful land – a hospitable, fertile land which has recovered after the war unleashed here at the start of the 90s and in which neither the Abkhaz people nor the Abkhaz leadership intends to allow anyone to unleash war ever again. Russia will do everything to help them in this and guarantee that there will be no war here any more. By the way, I am very impressed by Sukhum as a city which has revived and continues to build. I am sure that the agreements being worked out between us and Abkhazia in development of the grand treaty will also provide for cooperation in the full restoration of the normal life of both the city and the Abkhaz state and in the creation of all necessary conditions for all those living here to feel comfortable.

Regarding the borders; you have mentioned the example of the European Union. Actually, there are borders there, but they are transparent. There are border guards as well as customs officers. For the most part they see to it that citizens of third countries do not enjoy the privileges with which the citizens of EU countries are provided. If you have an EU passport, if you have a Schengen visa – you are allowed to pass without being examined; others are subject to examination. I think that in the agreements between our countries which we have agreed to prepare, there will be a block of matters which is linked to freedom of movement, to matters of dual citizenship and many other things, which will in fact make the border as transparent for all Russians and all the Abkhaz as between EU members.

Question: Will Russian troops be withdrawn from Abkhazia?

Foreign Minister Lavrov: Where the presence of Russian troops in this region is concerned, our obligations are set out with utter thoroughness in the Medvedev-Sarkozy agreement of September 8. This agreement very minutely and concretely details the steps for settlement which must be undertaken by all the parties. The Georgian side must ensure the return of its troops to the barracks before October 1. The European Union, which gave the guarantees of nonattack by the Georgian side on Abkhazia and South Ossetia, must deploy at least two hundred military observers as soon as possible, and the OSCE must take a decision to send an additional number of observers to Georgia. For its part, Russia undertook to do the following. Firstly, we pledged ourselves within seven days to withdraw our observation posts from the Poti-Senaki line. There were five of them in all. We did it two days ahead of time. Secondly, we undertook within ten days after the international observers are deployed in the areas of Georgia abutting South Ossetia and Abkhazia to withdraw all our peacekeeping forces from there. As is stated in the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan, they will return to Russia to the line preceding the start of hostilities after the attack by the Georgian regime on Tskhinval. All that’s over and above this is absolutely outside the scope of the international community’s competence. Everything that occurs within Abkhazia is a sovereign matter of Abkhazia, and the same applies to South Ossetia. The decision of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to retain the presence of UN and OSCE observers on their territory is their sovereign right, therefore. Today Sergey Vasilyevich has described the terms on which Abkhazia will welcome the further work of the staff of the UN Observer Mission on its territory. As to the Russian forces currently in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, their status has changed: they are not peacekeeping forces now; they’re a Russian military contingent which is here on the basis of the decree of the President of the Russian Federation upon direct request from the leadership of Abkhazia. The same holds for South Ossetia. In the next few days their status will be solidified on the basis of the international treaty on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance, in which everything will be written down most clearly. This is my reply to your question.

Question: What immediate action will be taken in the field of state building in Abkhazia, and what role may Russia play in this?

Foreign Minister Lavrov: As to what assistance Russia may render in this process, I would like to stress once again that following the signing of the grand treaty which will reliably guarantee Abkhazia’s security, we will, as it should be between allies, conclude agreements in the most diverse spheres of activity. These agreements will encompass defense and security cooperation and concern border and customs matters, the issues of free trade, taxation, currency and banking systems and so on. The enumeration of fields in which we have agreed to prepare concrete sectoral agreements is directly connected with Russian assistance in the formation of Abkhazia as a full-fledged independent state.

Question: The Russian side has said that Saakashvili’s further presidency is undesirable to it, and that it does not intend to negotiate further with Georgia. In your opinion, is there a politician now who could change this situation in case he or she heads up Georgia?

Foreign Minister Lavrov: You know, when another great power recognizes Abkhazia and sends its representatives here for talks, you better put your question to that power’s representative; for we do not engage in enthronement or dethronement. If you remember, Mikhail Saakashvili did not become president by election, but by a revolution that destroyed the election results. Nevertheless, we had dealings with him and tried to find some points of contact. Certain accords existed; they instilled hope, but time after time these accords were rudely trampled by the Georgian side, and after what occurred on the night of August 7-8, Mikhail Saakashvili – and we are speaking here only for ourselves – cannot be our partner. We are certain that the wise, talented Georgian people are in a position to decide their destiny themselves, whoever might try to do this for them. That’s my reply.

Док. 492774
Перв. публик.: 15.09.08
Последн. ред.: 19.09.08
Число обращений: 60