The 14th round of Geneva talks

The 14th round of Geneva talks will be held on December 16. Such talks have been held regularly starting from autumn 2008, after the end of the Russian-Georgian war. Everybody more or less familiar with these talks, is stating that they are dead locked. And apart from Russia and its puppet regimes, everybody acknowledges that the reason for this deadlock is Russia's and its marionettes stubborn position. Russia is a very bad player in the international arena. It never plays a fair game, never retreats and never follows the rules of game. Russia is a phenomena, it thinks it is always right and this is a mental problem of the Russian politics. Psychiatrists have a diagnosis for that: when a person always thinks that he/she is always permanently right.

Therefore Russia does not accept any alternative opinion or position. If other sides do not agree to follow Russian orders it threatens to frustrate contacts/ negotiations/ talks or moreover it can abandon meetings like it did at the Astana OSCE summit. As it is known it did not want to sign a resolution which would indicate Russia's imperialistic role in occupying the territories of a sovereign neighbouring state –Georgia. A major obstacle for the Geneva process carrying on in a normal way is Russia's position which states that the conflict exists not between Moscow and Tbilisi but between the latter and its territories of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region. But in reality, the world knows that this is a conflict between Russia and Georgia.

The Kremlin stubbornly insists on treating Georgia’s territories, which are controlled temporarily by Russia and its puppet regimes, as independent entities. Under Moscow’s demand, the Geneva process is being attended by the representatives of puppet entities of Tskhinvali and Sokhumi, though only in the working groups. But still the Geneva process is frozen as Moscow and its marionettes from Tskhinvali and Sokhumi insist on Georgia signing the document with its territories on non resumption of fire and hostilities. Thus Moscow wants Tbilisi to indirectly recognize the so called ‘new reality’.

Georgian president Saakashvili stated several times from high tribune the commitment of his country not to use force. Everybody around the world accepted this statement as formal assurance from the country of non usage of hostilities and force. However that is not ‘enough’ for Moscow and its puppets. They need a document, they say. Georgian diplomacy is more flexible and dynamic, apart from the president’s official statements, the Georgian delegation demands the introduction of international mechanisms for security in these regions. Georgia, as well as international organsiations, is primarily demanding admittance to those territories of different international missions, observers, humanitarian or others. Tbilisi also demands that Moscow makes a commitment on non use of force, this is particularly important as the Kremlin continues open and arrogant armament of the occupied territories. More and more weapons and personnel are arriving there. Georgia also insists on the return of IDPs to the places of their original settlement. For this round of Geneva talks, the Georgian side is prepared to provide documents concerning the terrorist attacks on Georgian territory allegedly masterminded by the Russian side.

If we consider what happened at the Astana OSCE summit, no breakthrough will be made at the Geneva talks. In Astana, Moscow’s president left the summit because nobody accepted the Kremlin’s vision of a new European security as a viable project, worthy even of discussion. In this project, Russia insisted on accepting Georgia’s occupied territories as independent states and simultaneously claimed territorial integrity of all the countries. This was the height of hypocrisy. However, Russia continues its policy of an imperialism of soviet style, threatening that it would be completely against the activities of OSCE. Russian FM Lavrov expressed his discontent saying that 2-3 countries insisted on accepting South Ossetia and Abkhazia as integral parts of Georgia. Once again this portrayed serious problems in Russia's political elite. In reality there are 2 or 3 countries worldwide which do accept Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent sovereign states. So these are the polar opposite stands of Moscow and Tbilisi regarding the conduct of the Geneva process though we should still hope that there could be the case of remission sometimes.