PRESS CONFERENCE BY Georgia

 

Georgia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Revaz Adamia, told correspondents at United Nations Headquarters today that his Government had successfully completed an operation to disarm remnants of a defiant rebel militia holed up in the Kodori Gorge region of the breakaway province of Abkhazia.

Ambassador Adamia said that, about a week ago, just after the withdrawal of Russian peacekeeping forces from the Kodori Gorge -- which is divided between the Georgian-administered upper area and the Abkhaz-controlled lower part -- a group of armed criminals declared their “disobedience” to Georgian jurisdiction.  Certainly, the Georgian Government could not tolerate that kind of action –- indeed no government would.  Subsequently, a special operation had been undertaken in the Gorge, which had been aimed at disarming the gang and normalizing the situation.

That operation had been concluded successfully, and law and order had been restored in that part of Abkhazia.  “All insinuation that Georgia violated this or that treaty, including the 1994 Moscow Treaty Agreement, is just simply lies”, he said.  Furthermore, the Georgian Government had taken the decision to relocate a legitimate Government of Abkhazia into the Kodori Gorge, and that had been the correct decision.  “Now there will be a legitimate Government, legitimate authorities and that Government will be the one that decides everything there and also speaks to the rest of the world in Georgia’s name.”

He reminded correspondents that Abkhazia was a conflict country where the secessionist regime had carried out ethnic cleansing in the early 1990’s and still enjoyed the outcomes of that war.  Indeed a gang of former KGB agents ruled a part of his country and did everything they could to spoil the search for a peaceful solution of the conflict.  Hundreds of thousands of his compatriots were not allowed to live in their homeland or speak their mother tongue.

He underlined that Georgia did not intend to start any confrontation: it was prepared to continue the peace process and propose new peace initiatives.  Georgia wanted a quadri-partite meeting to take place in the next few days so all the pressing issues could be discussed.  “The Georgian State’s intentions were peaceful and constructive”, he said, adding “we will be constructive and flexible as never before, and as never before, we will struggle against any confrontation or wide scale conflict in order to prevent any escalation”.

Nonetheless, he urged every separatist leader with whom the Government was negotiating to realize that the outcome of any talks, agreement or political process could be only one thing: the irreversible and final restoration of Georgia’s entire territory, of course taking into account the legal, legitimate interests of every side, and above all, the interests of Abkhaz and other people living there so that no one felt threatened or at risk of facing long-term problems.

“Everyone should understand that we have great patience, but behind that patience stand almost 300,000 refugees, not just Georgians, but others who had been robbed of their property, human dignity and right to live on the land where they had been born and raised”, he said.  Therefore, when Georgia spoke about taking into account the interest of Abkhaz brothers, everyone should understand that those interests included the interest of all those that had been robbed, humiliated and forced out.

“They must all return and again create a new shared Georgian State that was a model of peace and ethnic and civil cooperation”, he said.  “We will not retreat from that policy, because our aim is to have order in Georgia, and for the country to be whole and a strong developed State, which sets an example to others of peaceful coexistence and of creating a better future.”

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For information media • not an official record