Escape From the Kosovo Trap
“We are trapped here," admitted Javier Solana to the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee in Brussels telling the Committee that Kosovo's campaign for independence could set an unwanted precedent for Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Russia for a long time now is speculating that it won’t be able to ignore “the will of people” of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and allow Europe to apply “double standards” to conflicts which Russia considers to be similar to the one in Kosovo, which being by 90 percent populated by Albanians is (it seems successfully) seeking an independence from Serbia.
"President [of Georgia] Saakashvili is trapped; all of us are trapped in a double mechanism that may have good consequences for one, but not for the other. It may not be a win-win situation -- although we should be able to look [for] and find a win-win solution. But it will not be easy." Solana told the Committee.
And Tbilisi seems to have found one. Or it has found Tbilisi. The trick is an alternative ballot to the upcoming South Ossetian presidential elections and referendum.
Headed by pro-Russian self-styled president Eduard Kokoiti, a separatist government of South Ossetia plans to hold a referendum on joining the Russian Federation on November 12 this year along with the presidential elections which Kokoiti, the only candidate, is widely expected to win. There's also no doubt about the pro-Russian outcome of the referendum.
Earlier the parliament of Abkhazia appealed to the Russian State Duma requesting it to consider a possibility of Abkhazia joining the Russian Federation.
During the latest nationwide televised Q&A session with Russian citizens the President Vladimir Putin reiterated that Moscow is closely following the development in Balkans keeping Georgia in mind.
“On the one hand it [the international law] talks about the protection of a principle of territorial integrity, and Russia follows this principle in respect to Georgia and in respect to any other state. But there is also the principle of the self-determination of a nation. But despite these contradictions we should search for ways out of this situation; at the same time we will closely watch international precedents, including the case of Kosovo.”
An alternative simultaneous ballot is to be held in South Ossetia by a so called Union of South Ossetia Liberation headed by pro-Tbilisi Ossetian activist and TV-commentator Vladimir Sanakoev. He told the press that USOL already has created an alternative Central Electoral Commission and plans to open ballot points in both Tskhinvali- and Tbilisi- controlled territories to target both Ossetian and Georgian population of the breakaway region.
South Ossetia's Georgian population is boycotting "official" elections and referendum but is expected to take part in the alternative voting which features four candidates to become the next president of South Ossetia. All candidates are fierce critics of the Kokoiti regime and, as a consequence, persona non grata in Tskhinvali.
While formally Tbilisi won't recognize neither official nor alternative votes, it should be obviously pleased by an ambiguous position that Kokoiti is about to find himself after elections.
Probably sensing a trouble coming South Ossetian proposed direct talks between Saakashvili and Kokoiti "with ONCE participation" to sign a document committing sides to "not to use of threaten to use force". Almost simultaneously to Tskhinvali's proposal, Saakashvili, through the Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli, offered a one-to-one meeting to Kokoiti in Bakuriani, mountain resort in South Georgia with traditionally large Ossetian population.
Earlier the European Parliament adopted a joint resolution calling Russia to withdraw it's support to the South Ossetian and Abkhazian separatism and criticizing Moscow for it's treatment of Georgia and Georgians.
“MEPs strongly condemn the attempts by movements in the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to establish independence unilaterally. Parliament calls on the Government of the Russian Federation to withhold support from all of these movements and to give its fullest support to the multilateral efforts to find a solution to the conflicts in its neighbourhood," resolution reads.
“Parliament calls, further, on the Russian authorities to lift their unjustified import ban on products from Moldova and Georgia. The House calls on the Council and the Commission to include the question of frozen conflicts and their resolution on the agenda for the next EU-Russia summits.”
Cross-posted to georgia_ge