Moscow Favours Implementation Of All Georgia-Abkhazia Agreements

Moscow comes out for implementing all the bilateral agreements on settling the Abkhaz-Georgian conflict (Abkhazia is a self-proclaimed republic within Georgia), including the fundamental Moscow cease-fire agreement of May 14, 1994. The latter envisages that Georgian army be withdrawn from the Kodori Gorge. This is said in the statement by the foreign ministry's spokesman, forwarded to RIA Novosti Tuesday. The tensions in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict zone have recently started to decrease, runs the document. Nevertheless, Moscow continues to keep a watchful eye on the statements and practical efforts of the Georgian leadership, analyse the consequences of the Kodori developments of October 2001 from the viewpoint of their influence on the prospects for the Abkhaz settlement. The incident when a several hundred-strong armed gang invaded into Abkhazia from Georgian territory with the assistance and connivance of Georgia led to an out-break of the armed conflict. It drew Sukhumi and Tbilisi farther apart leading them to a crisis," the Russian Foreign Ministry stresses. "The only way to overcome psychological barriers and to clear out the way to peaceful settlement lies in ceasing to use force as a means of settling conflicts, in developing measures to increase mutual trust and guarantee the non-resumption of the armed conflict, in solving the issue of refugees and in the economic rehabilitation of the conflict zone." The Russian side fairly believes that these positive steps will be the backbone of the future creative international and, in particular, Russian efforts targeted at launching the negotiations between Tbilisi and Sukhumi, which will end up in the complete settlement of the present-day conflict.