TBILISI. Dec 16 (Interfax-AVN) - Georgia and its breakaway region of Abkhazia resumed weekly working meetings on conflict settlement after a four-month break on Thursday.
"Resumption of the talks can be considered successful. The parties reached an accord to instruct their law-enforcement agencies, as well as peacekeepers, to ensure safety of passenger bus traffic on the bridge across the Inguri River," Giorgi Ugulava, the Georgian president's envoy to Western Georgia, told Interfax-Military News Agency.
He said that the passenger bus route connecting Abkhazia's Gali district and Georgia's Zugdidi district will be restored at the requests of both regions' residents.
Ruslan Kushmaria, head of the Abkhaz delegation to the talks taking place in the village of Chuburkhinji, also said that the talks were successful.
"The meetings will become weekly now, and I am sure that we will be able to establish good working relations with the Georgian party," Kushmaria said.
Abkhazia suspended its participation in the talks in August 2004, protesting the attack of a Georgian warship against a Turkish bulk carrier that was heading for an Abkhaz port on July 29. Prior to that, the weekly talks in Chuburkhinji were quadrilateral and involved Georgia, Abkhazia, the command of the CIS Collective Peacekeeping Forces in the conflict zone, and UN mission observers. The talks resumed in the same format.