SUKHUMI. Oct 16 (Interfax-AVN) - Sergei Shamba, the foreign minister of the self-proclaimed republic of Abkhazia, has ruled out the status of an autonomous part of Georgia for his republic.
Responding to a corresponding statement by Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze he told Interfax that any broad autonomy for Abkhazia within Georgia is out of the question. "The leadership of Abkhazia will not even discuss the issue with Tbilisi. We can speak only of relations between states, everything else will contradict the Abkhazian constitution," he said.
In this connection Shamba said that in 1997Georgia refused to sign a treaty of a confederation with Abkhazia. "After that Abkhazia held a referendum and the overwhelming majority of the population voted for independence," he said.
Nevertheless he expressed the readiness of Abkhazian representatives to meet Shevardnadze. "But this meeting may discuss only the settlement of the current situation in the Kodori gorge of Abkhazia," he said.
As for Shevardnadze's statement on the use of force to resolve the problem of Abkhazia Shamba said: "In the past 10 years Georgia conducted three aggressions against Abkhazia and it is common knowledge what they all ended with."
"It is simply ridiculous to threaten Abkhazia today, such declarations prompt nothing but a smile," he said.