Nezavisimaya Gazeta
\nSeptember 1, 2009<\/p>\n
Backed by Russia, Abkhazia promises to seize Georgian ships
\nAuthor: Yuri Simonjan
\nRUSSIA MIGHT FIND ITSELF DRAGGED INTO A CONFLICT BETWEEN
\nTBILISI AND SUKHUMI AGAIN<\/p>\n
Backed by Russia, Abkhazia is prepared to challenge Georgia in the
\nBlack Sea. “They leave us no choice. We will seize Georgian
\nships,” Abkhazian Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba said. Georgia had
\nseized and arrested several ships on the run to and from Abkhazia
\nlast month.
\n\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Tbilisi in its turn only emphasized the resolve to board and
\ndetain all vessels entering territorial waters of Georgia,
\nincluding the Abkhazian part, without permit.
\n\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sukhumi turned to Moscow and immediately obtained its promise
\nof assistance. Ships navigating territorial waters of Abkhazia
\nwill be protected by Russian and Abkhazians border guards. “All
\nattention was focused on the Abkhazian-Georgian land border. The
\nsituation at sea requires attention too,” Shamba announced.
\n\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Georgian Coast Guard detained 23 ships for “violation of
\nthe entry regulations” this year and nearly 70 over the last four
\nyears. The ships are almost always Turkish, Ukrainian, Russian,
\nand Greek.
\n\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0“Seizing ships in neutral waters, Georgia commits acts of
\npiracy. Our appeals to the UN and EU remain unanswered which only
\nencourages Georgia. Tbilisi must have forgotten that Georgian
\nships pass us by on the way to Ukrainian, Bulgaria, and Greece and
\nthat we can respond in kind,” Shamba said.
\n\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The minister said that the situation had been more or less
\ntolerable until US Vice President Josef Biden’s visit to Georgia
\nthis spring. “The Georgian authorities must have been given
\nassurances of some sort,” Shamba assumed. He announced that
\nGeorgia’s actions constitute a violation of the settlement
\nagreement reached with the European Union’s help.
\n\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Official Tbilisi pays no heed to Sukhumi’s protestations. It
\nmaintains that sailing into Abkhazian ports without authorization
\nfrom the central government of Georgia is a violation that will
\nnot be tolerated.
\n\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister David Dzhalagania said at
\nthe press conference this Monday that participation of Russia
\nwould be a height of cynicism. He added that Russia had already
\nassaulted Georgia once.
\n\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0“Russia’s attempts to protect trespassers in the Georgian
\nterritorial waters will be appraised and treated as piracy.
\nFreight traffic to Abkhazia without Tbilisi’s permit is a gross
\nviolation of the Georgian legislation,” State Minister for
\nReintegration Temur Yakobashvili said.
\n\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Military expert Irakly Sesiashvili said that Tbilisi was
\ntrying to bite more than it could possibly chew. Attempts to
\nprevent Russian ships from entering the local waters will lead to
\na dangerous confrontation or Georgia will have to cry uncle.
\nSesiashvili said the international community alone could settle
\nthe issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nezavisimaya Gazeta September 1, 2009 Backed by Russia, Abkhazia promises to seize Georgian ships Author: Yuri Simonjan RUSSIA MIGHT FIND ITSELF DRAGGED INTO A CONFLICT BETWEEN TBILISI AND SUKHUMI AGAIN Backed by Russia, Abkhazia is prepared to challenge Georgia in the Black Sea. “They leave us no choice. We will seize Georgian ships,” Abkhazian Foreign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":38128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[209,42,208],"tags":[703,1555],"class_list":["post-14504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-georgia-caucasus","category-russia","category-southerncaucasus","tag-abkhazia","tag-black-sea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}