http://www.ftd.de/karriere_management/business_english/:Business%20English%20Breakaway/306455.html
Breakaway territories watch and wait, Financial Times Deutschland
January 28, 2008 on 9:08 am | In News in English
<http://news.serbianunity.net/category/english-news/>, Kosovo & Metohija
<http://news.serbianunity.net/category/english-news/kosovo-metohija/>,
In Focus <http://news.serbianunity.net/category/english-news/in-focus/> |
*Stefan Wagstyl*
/The question of independence for Kosovo is casting a shadow over the
Balkans and Caucasus./
Russian warnings that a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo
could set a precedent for other breakaway territories provokes jitters
among US and European Union officials. But in the separatist territory
of Abkhazia on the Black Sea, Moscow’s words are as welcome as winter
sunshine.
“We see Kosovo exactly as a precedent, not only for Abkhazia but for
many other unrecognised countries,” says Maxim Gunjia, the deputy
foreign minister, in a telephone interview in Sukhumi, the Abkhazian
capital. “We want to achieve international recognition for our
independence.”
Abkhazia, which is legally a province of Georgia - where voters go to
the polls on Saturday in snap presidential elections aimed at defusing a
growing political crisis - tops the list of disputed territories where
the Kremlin could be in a position to use the Kosovo precedent. South
Ossetia, a much smaller breakaway territory in Georgia, is another prime
candidate. So is the unrecognised republic of Transdniestra, a
separatist region in Moldova.
A resurgent Russia sees the disputes over all three territories as
potential opportunities to reassert influence in the former Soviet Union
and to irritate the west, which would hate to see former Soviet
republics pulled back into Moscow’s orbit.
The US and the EU have interests in all three regions: they back
Georgia’s efforts to re-establish its authority over Abkhazia and South
Ossetia, and to seek Nato membership, while in Moldova, they are keen
for the country to reunite and increase co-operation with the west.
After years in limbo, the Kosovo question has climbed the diplomatic
agenda amid efforts to find a settlement for the Balkan territory, which
has been run by the United Nations since Serbian forces were expelled by
Nato troops in 1999. The west broadly backs the majority ethnic Albanian
population’s independence demands but Russia supports Serbia’s
insistence that Kosovo remains Serbian territory.
The failure last month of last-ditch United Nations-sponsored talks has
prompted the US and EU to prepare to impose a settlement outside the UN
framework under which western governments would this year recognise a
unilateral independence declaration.
In supporting Belgrade, Moscow is standing by a traditional ally and
defending its own interests. As Oksana Antonenko, a senior fellow at the
UK-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, argues Russians
saw Nato’s 1999 deployment in Kosovo as a threat to Russia. She writes
in a recent paper that many Russians see the proposed Kosovo settlement
as a western attempt to prove the 1999 campaign was legitimate.
“Since Russia opposed the campaign . . . it has no interest in
legitimising it now, when relations are tense over missile defence in
Europe, Nato enlargement and the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty [a
cold war security pact that Moscow suspended this month].”
Russia is also concerned about setting a dangerous precedent. As Sergei
Lavrov, foreign minister, said this month: “It will create a chain
reaction throughout the Balkans and other areas of the world.”
The region that particularly worries Moscow is the Caucasus, where
minority populations inside and outside Russia have sought independence.
Moscow is less worried than it was about its own territorial integrity
after bloodily reimposing control on Chechnya. But Vladimir Putin, the
president, remains concerned. He said this summer: “It is very difficult
to explain to the small peoples of the north Caucasus why, in one part
of Europe, some people are given this right [to be independent] while
here in the Caucasus they have no such right.”
But this approach has not stopped Moscow from supporting Georgia’s
breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia with money, military and
security experts and the issue of Russian passports. Mikheil
Saakashvili, Georgia’s pro-west president, is convinced that Russia is
using the separatist conflicts to undermine him.
He has made the fate of Abkhazia and South Ossetia a central feature of
his election campaign, travelling to the regions in a bid to win over
the votes of the more than 200,000 ethnic Georgian refugees from those
areas.
So far Mr Putin has not suggested recognising Abkhazia or South Ossetia,
almost certainly out of concern on the possible impact on Russia’s
Caucasian minorities. But Russian nationalists are loudly expressing
support. Boris Gryzlov, the Duma speaker, has proposed debating
parliamentary motions recognising Abkhazia and South Ossetia next month.
Other MPs suggested Transdniestra could be next.
These motions will not have any legal force, but will raise the
political temperature just as events in Kosovo reach a critical phase.
Ms Antonenko does not expect Moscow to rush into recognising new states
in “revenge” for Kosovo. However, she says Russia could in future move
further towards recognising Abkhazia, which is seen as a more viable
state than either South Ossetia or Transdniestra.
In any event, co-operation with the west in solving conflicts in the
Caucasus will be much more difficult.
Alexander Rondeli, president of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic
and International Studies, agrees. “There will be no war over Abkhazia,
but political pressures could increase.”
However, western diplomats warn that if pressures rise so could the
risks of clashes involving, for example, border guards. Last year,
Georgia accused Russia of firing a missile at a Georgian outpost in
Abkhazia. Later, two Russian officers working with Abkhazian troops were
killed in a clash with Georgian forces.
In Abkhazia, Mr Gunjia insists the authorities are committed to securing
independence through peaceful means. He does not see recognition coming
soon, but says it could be achieved by the time Russia hosts the 2012
Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, close to Abkhazia.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
