Moscow/Sokhumi - The autonomous rebel region of Abkhazia
Friday agreed to attend expert-level talks in Germany with Georgian
representatives on their territorial conflict, Abkhazia's President
Sergei Bagapsh was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
The talks could go ahead at the end of August in Berlin, Bagapsh
was quoted as saying. Initially, Abkhazia had refused to attend such
talks.
Top US negotiator Matthew Bryza earlier Friday visited Georgia for
peace talks with leaders of its Russian-backed separatist region,
following a similar visit to the region by German Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The two promoted a peace plan to calm tensions rife between
Tbilisi and Moscow over the rebel region of Abkhazia, autonomous
since a civil war ended in 1994.
But although Bryza voiced support for the German plan, he stressed
in meetings Friday that his visit to Georgia, a key US ally in the
strategic Caucasus, 'is not directly related to the plan.'
'I support the (peace) plan because I participated in its
preparation and because Russia has more or less agreed to it,' Bryza
was quoted by news agency Interfax as saying ahead of talks in the
Abkhaz capital Sokhumi.
He admitted, 'Here in Abkhazia the plan is not well-loved.'
Georgia's rebel region last week rejected as 'unacceptable' the
Steinmeir-headed plan, demanding among other issues that Georgian
troops first withdraw from the sensitive Kodori Gorge on the border
of Abkhazia.
Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia has enjoyed de facto
autonomy since a UN ceasefire in the 1990s that provided for a
permanent Russian peacekeeping mission of 2,500 men in the region.
But Moscow's recent moves to strengthen diplomatic ties and
increase its peacekeeping mission in the region set off a dangerous
row with Tbilisi, who says such steps amount to the creeping
annexation of its territory.
USA
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