Internationally backed peace talks between Georgia and Russia broke down on the first day on Wednesday with the rivals, who fought a war in August, blaming each other for the failure to even enter the same room.
“There were two separate meetings, the Russians and the Abkhazians [in one] and the Georgians in another,” Sergei Shamba, foreign minister of the pro-Russian separatist region of Abkhazia, told journalists.
The talks would have been the first time representatives of the two sides have held direct negotiations since the five-day war after Russia thwarted a Georgian assault to retake its breakaway region of South Ossetia.
Russia has kept troops in South Ossetia and another rebel region, Abkhazia, and recognizes both as independent states.
Pierre Morel, an official for the EU, which organized the talks with the UN and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, blamed “procedural difficulties” for the quick suspension of the negotiations.
Georgia said that Russia had refused to meet its delegation.
“It’s regrettable that the Russian Federation has put the process from the very beginning under severe constraints,” Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Giga Bokeria, head of Georgia’s delegation, told journalists.
Russia would not take part in any further talks with Georgia if representatives from South Ossetia and Abkhazia were not invited, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said.
The US injected a third element to the breakdown, with its head of delegation Daniel Fried saying that it was the South Ossetians and Abkhazians who failed to exhibit a “constructive spirit” to keep talks going.
“Unfortunately ... the de facto authorities of South Ossetia and Abkhazia who were present at the meeting, I’m sorry to say did not exhibit such a constructive spirit — they chose instead to walk out of the informational session,” he said.
Meanwhile, EU leaders were set to delay yesterday a decision on when to restart talks with Russia on a stalled partnership pact, suspended after Russia’s incursion into Georgia in August, a draft statement showed.
The draft, due to be approved by leaders at the final session of a two-day summit, welcomed the withdrawal of Russian troops from buffer zones in Georgia, but fell short of saying that partnership talks could start again.
“The European Council is asking the [European] Commission and the Council [of foreign ministers] to continue a full in-depth evaluation of EU-Russia relations with a view to the forthcoming [EU-Russia] summit, scheduled to take place in Nice on Nov. 14,” said the final draft statement.
“It will be taken into account in the further negotiations for a new Partnership Agreement with Russia,” the EU draft statement said.
An earlier version had said that talks would resume next month, but EU President France failed to convince all its partners to agree to this.
In related news, the UN’s highest court ordered Russia and Georgia to ensure the security of all ethnic groups in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and adjacent areas of Georgia.
In a provisional ruling on a lawsuit filed by Georgia that alleged human rights violations by Russia in the region, the International Court of Justice said Georgia and Russia must refrain from sponsoring any act of racial discrimination.
The 15-judge tribunal ruled with eight votes to seven in favor of ordering both parties to do all in their power to ensure the security of persons, freedom of movement and the protection of refugees’ property. It also said Georgia and Russia must allow humanitarian aid to reach local populations.
The court ruled it had jurisdiction to order the measures and ordered both parties to inform it of their compliance.
But Moscow dismissed the court’s jurisdiction.
“We intend to continue to prove that the court has no jurisdiction in this case at the next stage of the proceedings,” Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement on its Web site.
The UN court said that while the Georgian population in the conflict areas remains vulnerable, given the unstable situation and ongoing tension in South Ossetia, Abkhazia and adjacent areas in Georgia, the ethnic Ossetian and Abkhazian populations also remain vulnerable.
“While the problems of the refugees and internally displaced persons in this region are currently being addressed, they have not been resolved in their entirety,” the court said.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a