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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Tbilisi Launches Political Assault In Abhazia |
| 2006-07-30 |
| PRAGUE, July 28, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has ordered the Abkhaz government in exile to move from Tbilisi to the Kodori Gorge. The move is a bold step toward restoring central control over the breakaway province. The Kodori Gorge, a remote mountain valley in the northeast of Abkhazia, is the only part of the province still controlled by the Georgian authorities. Most of Abkhazia has been ruled independently of Tbilisi since achieving de facto independence in 1993. By ridding the Kodori Gorge of Emzar Kvitsiani's rebel militia so quickly and with so little loss, the Georgian authorities had passed an important test, he declared on national television July 27. The operation had been a "huge success." The strategic significance of the gorge is enormous for Georgia -- it cuts down into the heart of the breakaway province of Abkhazia -- but its use to Tbilisi depends on the loyalty of the local administration. By turning Kodori into a private fiefdom, Kvitsiani, a former government official, turned a strategic advantage into a strategic liability. Saakashvili has been so quick to use this week's military success to seize the political initiative. Today he ordered the Abkhaz government in exile, which is recognized and supported by Georgia, to move its offices from Tbilisi to Kodori. "We have decided to move the [representatives] of the Abkhaz government to the Kodori Gorge, where they will exercise the full jurisdiction of the Georgian authorities and take full control of the territory, normalize life, and begin reconstruction work," Saakashvili said on national television. He also signaled to the Abkhaz separatist authorities in Sukhumi that Georgia intends to maintain a much more aggressive presence in Kodori than it has in the past. "For the first time since 1993, a government emerges -- a government enters the territory of our Abkhazia that will exercise full Georgian jurisdiction and maintain Georgia's constitutional order in the very middle of Abkhazia, on a very important part of Abkhaz territory," he said. |
| Posted by:Steve White |