SUKHUMI, Abkhazia. Oct 25 (Interfax-AVN) - Abkhazia's longing to get associate membership in the Russian Federation is motivated by the failure of peace talks with Georgia, Abkhazian Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba told Interfax-Military News Agency on Thursday.
The issue will be put like that at the talks between Prime Minister Anri Dzhergeniya and Dieter Boden, special representative of the UN secretary general in Georgia, which are to take place in Sukhumi later in the day, Shamba said.
The recent events in the Kodori gorge were the result of sending Georgian and Chechen guerillas to Abkhazia by Georgian authorities, Shamba said. Such actions of the Georgian party reduced to the minimum the level of Abkhazia's trust to Georgia. "Abkhazia's interest in the negotiating process is declining, because the Georgian party is constantly violating its obligations concerning security in the conflict zone," Shamba added.
According to him, irresponsible statements of Georgian officials prove their unwillingness to deal with true settlement too. In particular, the governor of the Imertia region said that he was going to organise a guerilla detachment to wage war in Abkhazia and called on all other Georgian governors to join him. If Georgia had sought ways towards peacefull settlement of the conflict, any high-ranking official would have been punished immediately for such statements, Shamba stressed.
In such situation Abkhazia can do nothing but look for more reliable partners. One of the ways out is to acquire associated membership in the Russian Federation while keeping the status of an independent state, Shamba added. According to him, Abkhazia is going to step up relations with "brotherly peoples of the North Caucasus and the Abkhazian diaspora in Turkey".