Uneven deep-lomacy
April 11th, 2008 by jibs
Strange misunderstandings take place around the Georgian authorities, especially as of late. “Dialogue”, “breakthrough”, “unprecedented”, “first time in the history” 
– are words that pop up daily from the leaders of Saakashvili’s administration. Yet, often something comes up to spoils the celebration.
One of the recent flops was the reaction to Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski’s interview to Reuters, where he supposedly links EU-Russian trade negotiations to the condition to grant Georgia and Ukraine NATO Membership Act Plan. In other words, Kaczynski was reportedly ready to veto the trade agreement unless Georgia and Ukraine were granted NATO membership access.
The same day, the Georgian authorities responded with a glow: “honorable response”, “with allies like this we will succeed”, “thank you”, “breakthrough”… A few hours later Poland’s president retracted his words, saying he was misquoted.
Relations with Russia are never easy, especially on the background of troubled history. The interaction between the two countries got so low that apart from economic embargo and visa restrictions, even the transport and postal communication was ceased.
The newly re-elected Saakashvili traveled to Moscow to extend his hand of friendship once again. Miraculously, things seemed to fall into their places: transport links were said to be resumed, embargo lifted, Russia would never recognize Abkhazia or South Ossetia and even the Georgian side was said to open a check point on the part of the Russian-Abkhazian border (an issue Georgia links to agreeing to Russia’s entry into WTO)!
The Russian Foreign Ministry denied these remarks, saying that most of these claims were misinterpreted by the Georgian side… Even more, within a week Russia moved to legalize its ties with Abkhazia, something that the Georgians were shocked to hear. Though, Russians claimed to have communicated their plans during the “breakthrough” meeting.
Moving on. Georgian authorities expected to gain MAP at the NATO Bucharest summit this April. Before the summit Saakashvili was quoted by Washington Post saying that anything less than MAP “…is rubbish. We can’t fool ourselves. We can’t fool our own people.” Similar remarks came from the Georgian Minister of Foreign Affairs.
MAP was not granted, some half-hearted promises for the future were made, and Saakashvili changed his position:
But instead, we received a direct commitment that we will become a NATO member. Today is a historical day for us, for our country, for this organization. It is equal to a geo-political revolution… When I first attended the NATO summit four years ago, I could not even dream about it…
So a promise to overlook the refusal to grant Georgia MAP in 8 months sums up to a victory. An optimistic calculation to say the least.
The relations with the Georgian opposition is not even worth mentioning. The commitments change on hourly basis from both sides. And let’s leave the breakthroughs with the de facto statelets of South Ossetia and Abkhazia — within a few months these conflicts will be resolved peacefully.
With moves like this…
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