On March 16 the third Georgian-Abkhazian confidence building conference aimed at settling the conflict ended at the Yalta Intourist hotel. The meeting was held under the auspices of the UN and mediation of Ukraine. The leaders of the Georgian and Abkhazian delegations, Georgy Arsenishvili and Vyacheslav Tsugba, signed their Yalta Declaration as well as the Georgian-Abkhazian Confidence Building Program and an annex. The document sets out measures to ward off the use of force in case the bilateral relations deteriorate. In addition, both sides included in the declaration a request to the UN and “countries friendly to the UN Secretary General on the Georgian issue” to act in such case as guarantors of the peace process. The documents also lay down conditions for a “voluntary and safe return of refugees to Abkhazia’s Galsky district at the first stage.” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Anatoly Zlenko said, “This will be followed by far from easy and painstaking efforts to put the agreements into practice.” Observers view the results of the meeting as an undoubted success, which could lay the groundwork for eventual settlement of this regional conflict.
Both the signing of this document and the very fact of the two sides meeting in Yalta have evoked optimism not only in Kyiv. Ukraine seems to have somewhat improved its international image thanks to the successful mediating effort. Yet, this is only the first step: real success is still very far-off, facing a host of obstacles.
What is needed for success is a radically innovative approach. Moreover, Ukrainian mediation could be construed in a way as a challenge to Russia, which has been trying or pretending to try to settle the conflict for the past seven years. As evidenced by the Yalta meeting between the delegations headed by such high- ranking officials as Georgian State Minister Georgy Arsenishvili and Abkhazian Prime Minister Vyacheslav Tsugba, Kyiv’s optimism was not unfounded. Ukrainian diplomacy’s innovative approach, coordinated with the UN and recommended to the conflicting parties, consists in the belief that it is unwise to try to solve immediately the main problem, because any agreement on the status of Abkhazia is currently unattainable: the conflicting sides, as well as their political partners, hold diametrically opposed positions. The two sides should in fact start with small but pressing issues in order to approach the main problems, having gained the experience of cooperation, not war, and displaying a will for concord, not conflict.
The meeting’s purpose, as Dieter Boden, special envoy of the UN Secretary General in Georgia, presiding over the Yalta meeting, emphasized, was not to conclude a full-scale agreement but to work out confidence-building measures. In his opinion, “the two sides had made rather slow progress after two meetings, but the past year has seen a dramatic rise in confidence-building measures.”
Welcoming the participants in the meeting, Mr. Zlenko said “holding the meeting in Yalta is symbolic, for the Crimea is a vivid example of a peaceful and civilized solution of difficult interethnic problems on the post-Soviet territory.” Indeed, the peninsula has not yet seen an armed conflict largely thanks to the Crimean Tatars’ adherence to the traditions of nonviolent struggle for their rights, one of their leaders, Mustafa Dzhemiliov, told Mr. Zlenko. But in reality, the Crimea is a Russian-speaking territorial autonomy in which the solution of many — linguistic, cultural, political, and socioeconomic — problems of this indigenous, previously deported people is being put off indefinitely. Incidentally, as the minister of foreign affairs was told, the Crimea also feels the repercussions of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict: the peninsula is inhabited by several hundred Crimean Tatar refugees from Abkhazia who not only had to leave their property in the Caucasus but also lost their documents and relatives in the chaos of the war. This raises serious difficulties which can be settled only with the Foreign Ministry’s help.
Apart from suggesting this policy of small steps, Ukraine favors the expansion of peacekeeping forces in Abkhazia (now there 1500 Russia peacekeepers there, while the UN mandate allows a 3,000-strong contingent in the conflict area). Moscow has claimed its troops are quite sufficient to keep peace. The Abkhazian authorities have also opposed sending a Ukrainian contingent, an idea supported by the Georgian leadership. The UN and Ukraine both consider that the conflict should be settled with Abkhazia retaining autonomy within the Georgian state.
On March 21, the situation in this region will be discussed at a UN Security Council closed-door session chaired by Ukraine.
