Word: abkhazia
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...Balkans is not the only theater in which Moscow is strongly reasserting its presence. This week, just as Georgia's breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia formally appealed to Russia, the U.N., the E.U. and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) a loose association of post-Soviet countries to recognize their independence. Russia has pointedly abandoned the economic sanctions, clamped on Abkhazia in 1996 to punish its separatism. The Parliament of the Russian Republic of Alania-North Ossetia already voted to incorporate South Ossetia. Next week, the Russian Duma will consider Abkhazian and South Ossetian appeals to join Russia...
...South Ossetia and Abkhazia broke away from Georgia in the 1990s in the wake of bloody ethnic wars. Much as those wars were ignited by the then Nationalist Georgian authorities, Russia fanned the flames by giving a brazen support to the separatists. It was the Russian army that won their wars against Georgia...
...Russia is smartly playing a more subtle game then just formally recognizing breakaway provinces," comments Tedo Japaridze, former Georgian Foreign Minister. Indeed, Russia could never openly annex South Ossetia or Abkhazia. That would have been very much in conflict with Russia's harsh suppression of Chechnya's independence, or fears of separatism in non-Russian ethnic regions. Annexing Abkhazia and South Ossetia was also "a red line" drawn by the U.S. But Russia has become the de facto power in both territories without formally annexing them. Chairman of the Chechen Parliament Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov blurted out last week that "Abkhazia...
...Leonid Slutsky, First Deputy Chair of the Russian Duma's Foreign Relations Committee, told Itar-Tass on Friday that "So far, Russia doesn't have plans of recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia." However, he said, "Should Georgia try using force there, the situation will cardinally change. The same concerns Georgia's plans of joining NATO...
...Russian interests in the Caucasus. This let Saakashvili restore Ajaria, one of the breakaway and Moscow-oriented provinces, to Georgia's central authority, as Putin gave it up as a test of Saakashvili's intentions. At that, however, Saakashvili's luck seems to have run out: Russia firmly controls Abkhazia and South Ossetia - the other two breakaway republics, with no intentions of giving them back, and keeps turning up the heat on a Western-leaning Georgia, since September 2006, by severing mail and transportation links between the two countries, closing Russian markets to Georgian wine and other key exports. Many...