German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier embarked yesterday on a trip to Georgia and Russia to float an international peace plan aimed at ending a dangerous dispute over the separatist Georgian region of Abkhazia.
Steinmeier was bound first for Tbilisi and later the Black Sea city of Batumi to hold talks with the Georgian government and opposition figures before traveling today to Abkhazia, where he was expected to meet local leaders.
The trip will then take him to Moscow for talks with his Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
“Germany has long been engaged in trying to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” German foreign ministry spokesman Andreas Peschke told reporters on Wednesday, adding that the visit was part of international efforts to cool tempers in the region. “The goal of the trip is to find with all the affected parties ways out of the logic of escalation, out of this spiral of constantly escalating incidents.”
Tensions have soared in recent months over Tbilisi’s bid to join NATO and Moscow’s support for two separatist territories, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which broke away from the rest of Georgia in the 1990s.
Berlin chairs the UN secretary-general’s Group of Friends of Georgia, which also includes Britain, France, Russia and the US.
Germany has drawn up a three-stage plan to settle the conflict between Georgia and Abkhazia. The steps would entail an end to violence and confidence-building measures as well as the return of about 25,000 Georgian refugees to Abkhazia, German media reports said.
The second stage would involve developing joint reconstruction projects, while the third and most difficult step would determine Abkhazia’s future status.
German diplomatic sources said the trip would involve vetting specific initial steps with all sides to find a viable way forward.
The speaker of the Georgian parliament, David Bakradze, hailed Steinmeier’s visit late on Wednesday as “a serious step towards modernization of the [Russia-led] peacekeeping operation format” in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
However, “at this stage it is premature to talk about implementation of the three-stage [conflict resolution] plan proposed by Germany,” Bakradze told reporters.
Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh, whom Steinmeier was expected to meet today, said this week he would not “consider the plan,” Russian news agencies said.
“We do not intend to discuss Abkhazia’s political status with anyone. We are constructing an independent and democratic state,” Interfax quoted Bagapsh as saying.
Steinmeier met with visiting UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday and called Lavrov and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week to discuss Abkhazia.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including