Aleksandr Ankvab: “V grobu my videli ih vse strategii!”



The Ministry of Reintegration of Georgia released a new state strategy on the occupied territories, “Engagement through Cooperation,” on Wednesday, January 27. While the Georgian side hopes the strategy can restore relations between the two peoples, an Abkhaz Government official has termed the document “nonsense.”

The strategy’s overarching intent is to foster cooperation between the populations and allow those residing in Abkhazia and South Ossetia to access benefits provided by the Georgian Government. “We are going to launch full scale cooperation with the people that reside in these territories, and this is quite significant,” said Temur Yakobashvili, State Minister of Reintegration of Georgia.

The strategy states that “the Government of Georgia strives to extend to the populations in Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia the benefits of its [Georgia’s] continual progress in national reforms, and its closer integration into European and Euro-Atlantic structures and institutions.” The document is designed to be a step towards the de-occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the reversal of their annexation by Russia, and their reintegration with Georgia. Georgia’s Government plans to employ peaceful means and diplomatic efforts to achieve these objectives. The strategy rejects the possibility of a military solution.

However, “this is not a strategy for final resolution of the problem,” said Andro Barnovi, Director of the Institute for Strategy and Development, who participated in formulating the document. “It is rather a middle level strategy which implies the ending of the isolation of the people in those territories.”

Specifically, the strategy seeks to counter isolation “by creating frameworks, incentives, and mechanisms for engagement.” Interaction among the populations living on both sides of the de facto borders could be achieved, the document says, by enhancing economic ties between people, developing infrastructure, promoting basic human rights, improving healthcare and promoting freedom of movement and people-to-people interaction. Special attention has been given to the preservation of cultural heritage.

Thus the strategy employs “a human-centric, proactive policy” that addresses the population’s needs. “It [the strategy] is based on the needs of people,” Temur Yakobashvili said. He also said that, as stipulated by the strategy, Georgia’s Government will consider all possibilities to restore connections with the breakaway regions.

Yakobashvili said that the Georgian side will be ready to “discuss everything,” including the restoration of the Sukhumi-Tbilisi railway, “when the right time comes.” He added that the document stipulates that the Georgian Government plans to create mechanisms for relating with the de facto authorities to address humanitarian issues.

Referring to the strategy as “a groundbreaking, even revolutionary, approach to conflict resolution for Georgia,” Dr. Cory Welt of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University said that “it recognises the necessity of engaging with the de facto authorities, and of doing so via a ‘status neutral’ framework that can pragmatically facilitate cooperation.”

The other side, however, has ignored the Georgian initiative. Aleksandr Ankvab, the former Prime Minister of Abkhazia’s de facto Government who was elected Vice President on December 12, 2009, said in a phone interview with GT that he was not even planning to look at the strategy. He refused to comment on the document, saying that he did not wish to discuss “various nonsense.”

To make his point more precise, Ankvab used a Russian saying: “V grobu my videli ih vse strategii,” which can be literally translated as “we saw all their strategies in a coffin.” This expression is often used as a complete denial of something, carrying a meaning that an initiative (or sometimes a person) in question has already been regarded as nonexistent or dead by the speaker.

“I think that this kind of attitude is not surprising,” Yakobashvili said in reference to Ankvab’s comment. “We will hear more of such statements, but nevertheless I think that while their politicians have a tendency to rely on rhetoric we have a tendency to rely on the needs of the people.”

Welt said that he saw two main strengths in the document: its readiness to pursue practical engagement and the provision of social services without preconditions and its willingness to pursue a wide range of cooperative activities.

However, “the strategy has come at least two years too late,” he said. Such a radical turnaround in Georgia’s approach to conflict resolution previously would have rendered greater pressure on the Russian authorities and the de facto Governments to reciprocate such signs of seemingly good intent.

Also, Welt warned that “if Georgia’s proposals prove to be contingent on explicit acknowledgments of Georgian territorial integrity, the strategy is likely to end up as no more than a PR exercise” aimed to impress the West, which has long advocated such a strategy. “The Abkhaz and South Ossetians, however, are unlikely to sacrifice their secessionist aspirations, at least in the short-term, for Georgian healthcare and joint ventures,” Welt said.

While promoting cooperation with the breakaway territories, the strategy affirms the principle of Georgia’s territorial integrity. It also reflects the principles of international law and peacekeeping agreements signed after the August 2008 war.

It is set to be implemented through relevant Government institutions in Georgia via a status-neutral framework for interaction with the authorities in control of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and liaison mechanisms and infrastructure, all of which have yet to be developed. These specific instruments for implementation will be outlined in an action plan.

The document avoids referring to the de facto Governments in Abkhazia and South Ossetia as “puppet regimes,” a term that has become commonplace in the Georgian media and official circles. Instead, the strategy terms these bodies as “authorities in control of governance.”


The Embassies of the United States and France in Tbilisi have already issued statements welcoming the new strategy.