0
MAASTRICHT (The Netherlands) Dec 1: Georgia’s interim President Nino Burdzhanadze accused Russia on Monday of undermining her country’s independence by holding talks with leaders from three of its restive regions last week.
Burdzhanadze, an opposition leader appointed after Eduard Shevardnaze quit following accusations of vote rigging in last month’s parliamentary elections, said Russia was important to Georgia’s stability but should not undermine its sovereignty.
Leaders from South Ossetia and Abkhazia — which broke free of Georgian control more than a decade ago — and Adzhara — which has never espoused outright separatism — met Russian officials in Moscow last week, seriously irritating Tbilisi.
“We are ready to step out of a box of historical prejudices and start our relations from a clean paper. At the same time this should be a two-way street,” Burdzhanadze told a summit of foreign ministers in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht.
“Our Russian colleagues should also understand that actions undermining Georgian sovereignty and territorial integrity similar to those we witnessed during the last week in Moscow ruin all positive messages and put us in an avoidable confrontational position.”
A member of the Georgian delegation at a meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Maastricht confirmed Burdzhanadze was referring to last week’s talks in Moscow.
The Kremlin, which played a central role in negotiations leading to Shevardnadze’s resignation, has vowed not to interfere in the former Soviet republic’s internal politics.
Burdzhanadze praised Moscow for its intervention to help ensure a peaceful transition of power.
Under Shevardnadze, the one-time Soviet foreign minister who helped end the Cold War, relations between Russia and Georgia were stormy. In addition to encouraging separatist tendencies, Moscow has applied economic and other pressure on Tbilisi.
Western states that see Georgia as a key transit country for a planned pipeline to bring Caspian oil to the Mediterranean are watching events there closely, mindful of a chaotic civil war that gripped the country in the 1990s.
Russia, with two military bases in Georgia, also sees strategic interests there.
APPEAL FOR FUNDS: Georgia’s new central election commission head appealed to the West on Monday for funds to help the cash-strapped country stage a new presidential poll, after Eduard Shevardnadze was toppled in a “people’s revolution”.
Zurab Chiaberashvili, appointed on Sunday as commission chief, said Georgia had to stage a fair presidential election to restore faith in a system bruised by a November 2 parliamentary poll.
The election was widely criticised for fraud and triggered mass protests that ended with Shevardnadze’s resignation.
“Meetings are planned with representatives of international organisations and diplomatic missions. I think that there should be no problem with providing money,” Chiaberashvili told Reuters in an interview.
“Expenditure (during the parliamentary election) stood at about six million lari ($2.8 million). From that, the largest amount was used to pay members of the election authorities. I think we will need that kind of sum.”
Georgia’s new leaders, who engineered Shevardnadze’s downfall, have said the presidential election would be staged on January 4 and have united behind a single candidate, US-educated lawyer Mikhail Saakashvili.
The parliamentary poll was widely criticised for fraud and led to three weeks of noisy street protests that toppled Shevardnadze, accused of stealing the vote, plunging the mountainous Caucasus state into poverty and allowing corruption.
Chiaberashvili vowed that would not be repeated.
“In the commissions at all levels, they should have no doubt that if I find that any of them break the law, I will take them to court myself,” he said.
He said his commission would have to find a way to update voter lists as many names were missing.
“Not one person should return home from a polling station without casting their vote,” he said.—Reuters
