Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili rejected key elements of a German plan on Thursday aimed at ending a dangerous dispute with Russia over the separatist Georgian region of Abkhazia.
Saakashvili told reporters after talks with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier that Georgia would not renounce the use of force in the conflict due to what he called incessant Russian provocations.
“As we speak there is a process of daily militarization of Abkhazia in front of the eyes of the international community,” he said. “If these kind of things continue to happen, talking about any kind of solutions will be very, very, very difficult.”
Steinmeier started a two-day trip in Georgia on Thursday that will also take him to Russia and Abkhazia in a bid to defuse a conflict that brought the region to the brink of war just months ago.
The German minister, whose country chairs the so-called UN Group of Friends of the Secretary General on Georgia, said the situation in Abkhazia was explosive and that “the spiraling violence must be stopped.”
He is aiming to thrash out a way forward based on a three-stage peace proposal drawn up by Berlin and presented to the three parties over the last week.
The first step of Berlin’s plan would entail an end to violence, confidence-building measures over the next year that could lead to the resumption of direct talks between Georgia and Abkhazia and the return of about 250,000 Georgian refugees to Abkhazia.
The second stage would involve developing joint reconstruction projects while the third and most difficult step would determine Abkhazia’s future status.
Steinmeier said he sought “a peaceful resolution based on the territorial integrity of Georgia” but said the West was deeply concerned about the recent escalation in the region.
“No one among us has any illusions. I am not here in the region to raise false hopes. But this deadlock must be broken,” he said.
German delegation sources said the talks with Saakashvili had been “difficult” but that the president had thanked Germany for its initiative and pledged Georgian cooperation in defusing the conflict.
Steinmeier spoke with UN chief Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about Abkhazia in the last week to prepare for the trip.
He was to travel yesterday to the region, where he was due to meet local leaders, before stopping in Moscow for talks with Lavrov and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
But speaking in Moscow on Thursday, Lavrov appeared to pour cold water on the German proposal, saying suggestions the agreement include the return of hundreds of thousands of Georgian refugees to Abkhazia were “unrealistic.”
And Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh, whom Steinmeier was to meet yesterday, said this week he could not consider the plan, according to Russian news agencies.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS