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Category: Georgia

  • Georgia challenges Russia to detain its ships in Abkhaz waters

    Georgia challenges Russia to detain its ships in Abkhaz waters

    TBILISI, September 15 (RIA Novosti) – Georgia said on Tuesday it would resist any attempts by Russia to detain its ships in the waters of its former province of Abkhazia.

    A Russian border protection service official said earlier in the day that Russian border guards would detain all vessels that violate Abkhazia’s maritime border. Tbilisi considers Abkhazia and its waters part of Georgian territory, and has declared any unauthorized maritime shipments of goods illegal.

    The Georgian Foreign Ministry condemned the Russian statement and said it would not tolerate any attempts to detain its ships.

    In a statement Georgia said, it “is determined to block any pirate-like actions on the Russian side by all legal, diplomatic and political methods available.”

    It stressed that in accordance with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Abkhazia’s 12-mile maritime zone, as well as the special zone and continental shelf, is part of Georgia.

    Georgia seized the Panama-flagged Buket tanker and its cargo of gasoline and diesel fuel off Abkhazia last month as it sailed from Turkey to the tiny republic on the Black Sea.

    Abkhaz Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba said in early September that Abkhazia was ready to resort to force as President Sergei Bagapsh had given the order “to open fire on Georgian ships if they continue their acts of piracy.”

    Russia recognized Abkhazia and another former Georgian republic of South Ossetia last August after a five-day war with Georgia over the latter, which was attacked by Tbilisi in an attempt to bring it back under central control. Most residents of both Abkhazia and South Ossetia have held Russian citizenship for several years.

    Under mutual assistance treaties signed last November, Russia pledged to help Abkhazia and South Ossetia protect their borders, and the signatories granted each other the right to set up military bases in their respective territories.

    Russia’s Defense Ministry has said it plans to open a base in Gudauta, in the west of Abkhazia, and staff it with at least 1,500 personnel by the end of this year.

  • Russia: Asserting Influence in the Black Sea

    Russia: Asserting Influence in the Black Sea

    Stratfor.com
    September 15, 2009

    Summary

    The Russian maritime border patrol chief said Sept. 15 that Russia will detain any ships illegally entering the waters of Georgia’s breakaway republic of Abkhazia. Moscow’s warning is aimed at Georgia, which has used its navy to detain several vessels heading for Abkhazia. Now that Russia has officially threatened to capture ships, Georgia has lost another way to contain Abkhazia and will likely think twice before it detains a ship sailing to Abkhazia, as the Georgians are well aware that their navy is no match for the Russian navy.

    Analysis

    The head of Russia’s coastal division of the border guards service, otherwise known as the FSB coast guard, issued a warning Sept. 15 that it will detain any ships entering the maritime territory of the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia without permission. The statement was directed specifically at Georgia, whose navy and coast guard have carried out numerous detainments of cargo ships traveling to Abkhazia via the Black Sea. The latest such interception occurred Aug. 15, when the Georgian coast guard detained a ship, with a Turkish captain and a crew of Azerbaijanis and Turks, carrying $2.4 million worth of fuel heading toward the Abkhazian port of Sukhumi. The crew was released on bail, but the Turkish captain was not released until Turkey’s foreign minister traveled to Georgia to appeal the decision personally. The governments of Turkey and Azerbaijan clearly were not happy about the detainment.

    In addition to irking the ship’s crew and their respective governments, the uptick in such naval detainments off the coast of the Black Sea has particularly angered Abkhazia ­ and by extension its security guarantor in Moscow. Such hostilities have been common ever since the Russo-Georgia war broke out in August 2008, when Moscow wrestled control over the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia. Russia has since established a significant military presence in these regions, and tensions have been high ­ both on land and sea ­ between Tbilisi and its breakaway republics. Following the incident on Aug. 15, Abkhazian President Sergei Bagapsh threatened to open fire on Georgian ships if Georgia continued such detainments. Georgia’s leadership dismissed these claims, saying that Abkhazia lacked the military capability to carry out such attacks, referring to the Abkhazian leader’s threats as a “bluff”.

    Georgia did acknowledge, however, that if someone did have the means to respond aggressively to such detainments, it would be Russia. Until this point, Moscow had been relatively quiet about the detainments, simply issuing statements for Georgia to stop intercepting ships. But this could have been Russia’s strategy of allowing the Georgians to dig themselves in a deeper hole before making a decisive threat. Now that Russia has officially threatened to seize ships, Georgia has lost another lever for containing the Abkhazians, as the Georgians are well aware that their navy is no match for the Russian navy.

    Most of the larger warships in Georgia’s small navy were lost during the war with Russia. What remains of an already hollow naval force are mostly gunboats, including some five patrol boats fitted with old Soviet 23mm anti-aircraft artillery pieces (possibly for use as naval guns). It is these gunboats and patrol vessels that likely would be involved in any security or interdiction effort off the coast.

    Just north of Abkhazia, the Russian FSB has provided coastal security forces of its own to the breakaway republic now recognized by two countries in addition to Russia. The size and disposition of these forces are unknown; Russia has simply stated that its forces patrolling the area will seize ships and “do everything to ensure the security of the Russian state, the Abkhaz state.” While it is possible that the FSB contingent is somewhat smaller than the remaining Georgian navy, it may have the overall capacity to be more active; especially considering that Russia has significant ports in the Black Sea in Novorossiysk and Sochi, it likely has better overall access to spare parts and support from Moscow.

    The bottom line is that the difference between the two forces is not so great that the finer points of a hypothetical tactical engagement could not push the outcome in either direction. But unlike Georgia, the FSB contingent has access to reinforcements in its much larger and more powerful Black Sea Fleet that could be quickly deployed to the waters off Abkhazia (the very ones used in the August 2008 war). The issue, however, is speed. Deploying a warship to sea unexpectedly can take as much as a day on the optimistic end of the spectrum, and transit to the Georgian coast would be the better part of another day. The amount of trouble Georgia could get itself into in the intervening time also merits consideration. Ultimately, Russia has a keen interest in keeping decisive military control over the situation. And in the end, without assistance from NATO ­ assistance clearly not coming ­ the Russian Black Sea Fleet, for all its challenges from maintenance to morale, is the dominant naval reality for Tbilisi.

    As such, these new developments may suggest that Georgia will now think twice before it detains a ship heading to Abkhazia. If it does not, there very well may be a much higher price to pay the next time.

  • Turkish-Abkhazia Ties Test Turkey’s Strategic Partnership with Georgia

    Turkish-Abkhazia Ties Test Turkey’s Strategic Partnership with Georgia

    Turkish-Abkhazia Ties Test Turkey’s Strategic Partnership with Georgia

    Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 164

    September 9, 2009
    By: Saban Kardas
    The plight of the Turkish captain of a tanker intercepted by Georgian authorities while carrying goods en route to Abkhazia highlighted the dilemmas of Turkey’s position on the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict.

    Since the war last August, Georgia has blockaded the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and has intercepted various ships carrying Turkish goods. In the latest incident, a vessel transporting fuel to Abkhazia was captured by the Georgian coastguard on August 17. Following the seizure, the Georgian authorities took the captains, one Turkish and the other Azeri, into custody. On August 31, a Georgian court sentenced them to 24 years in prison. The ship was confiscated and brought to Batumi port to be sold in an auction (Today’s Zaman, September 6).

    Growing concerns over the fate of the Turkish captain generated domestic pressure on the government to free him, which prompted the involvement of Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. The Turkish foreign ministry announced that Davutoglu would visit Tbilisi and that the government would do everything possible to secure the release of the captain. Meanwhile, on September 4, the shipping company paid a fee, and it was announced that an appeals court would reconsider the case. Davutoglu visited Tbilisi on September 7-8, and a Georgian court released the Turkish captain on September 8 (Anadolu Ajansi, September 8).

    The case highlighted tensions caused by similar practices by the Georgian authorities. Georgia has been seizing Turkish ships destined for Abkhazia, and in the past decade over sixty ships have been captured. Even prior to the latest crisis, representatives of Turkish exporters and Caucasian diaspora groups in Turkey raised concerns that the Turkish government was too complicit toward the “bullying” of the Georgian authorities.

    Ahmet Hamdi Gurdogan, the head of the exporters association in the Black Sea region, advanced several criticisms of Tbilisi (www.tekilhaber.com, August 25). First, he maintained that although Georgia claims to block all the trade routes to Abkhazia, Georgian coastal patrols cannot do anything against vessels carrying the Russian flag en route to Abkhazia. In a related charge, he argued that the Georgian patrol boats captured the Turkish ships in international waters, even in some cases immediately after they leave Turkish territorial waters. Therefore, Turkish exporters expect the government to flex its muscles, yet considering that Turkey supports Georgia’s territorial integrity and the Georgian embargo in place, the government might do little to stop the interception of Turkish ships in Georgian waters. Nonetheless, during his press briefing on the recent case, a spokesman for the foreign ministry expressed Ankara’s concern that some of the seizures might have taken place in international waters, and Georgia’s actions may violate international maritime laws (www.denizhaber.com, September 2).

    Turkish exporters also complain that the Georgians have turned such practices into an undeclared “piracy” in the Black Sea, since the Georgian authorities allegedly sell the vessels in auctions and demand large sums of money to release the crew of the captured ships. They also claim that in some cases, ships carrying humanitarian goods are also intercepted.

    The representatives of the Abkhazian diaspora in Turkey, also utilize similar arguments, and urge the Turkish government to lift its embargo. Turkey still supports the economic sanctions imposed against Abkhazia by the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Irfan Argun the Speaker of Caucasus-Abkhazia Solidarity Committee, for instance, maintained that the sanctions are creating a major humanitarian crisis in Abkhazia and that Turkey should end its policy of supporting the Georgian embargo and play a larger role in the resolution of the issue of Abkhazia (www.ajanskafkas.com, August 22). Around 500,000 Turkish citizens consider themselves to be of Abkhazian origin.

    At a more fundamental level, this crisis reflects the underlying dilemmas in Turkish policy on the Georgian-Abkhazian dispute. In an analysis published by the Ankara-based think tank close to the foreign ministry, the Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies, it was maintained that Ankara could no longer ignore the new reality in the region and act on the presumption that there was no problem relating to Abkhazia (www.orsam.org.tr, September 1). This line of thinking suggests that Ankara might need to redefine its policies toward the region. It justifies a redefinition with reference to the fact that if the present Georgian embargo continues, it might result in a situation whereby Abkhazia is forced to integrate itself into the Russian orbit both politically and economically. The best way to reverse such a trend, according to this view, would be to end the blockade of Abkhazia.

    Reflecting the demands of the Abkhazian diaspora, deputies from Republican People’s Party submitted a question to parliament. They lambasted the government’s silence and requested that the prime minister explain why the government still insisted on implementing the embargo (www.kafkasfederasyonu.org, August 22).

    Meanwhile, the Georgian attempts to implement the blockade have raised tension in the Black Sea region. The Abkhazian leader Sergei Bagapsh described the activities of Georgian ships in “Abkhazian waters” as piracy, and threatened to destroy them if Georgia did not cease its military activities (Anadolu Ajansi, September 2). A Russian foreign ministry spokesman warned Georgia about its practice of seizing commercial vessels, and said “attempts to enforce a sea blockade on Abkhazia could lead to a serious armed incident” (Anadolu Ajansi, September 3).

    Against this background, Davutoglu visited Tbilisi, where he met his Georgian counterpart Nikoloz Gilauri and President Mikheil Saakashvili. He held a lengthy meeting with Saakashvili about the release of the captain. Davutoglu described Georgia as a “strategic partner,” and reiterated Turkey’s support for its territorial integrity, and for Tbilisi’s NATO membership bid. Davutoglu said “We know very well that without ensuring Georgia’s peace and stability, it will be difficult to meet these goals in the South Caucasus” (Cihan, September 7).

    In addition to the necessity of responding to the demands made by domestic pressure groups, the risk of Georgian-Abkhazian tensions escalating into a destabilizing regional conflict energizes Ankara to address Georgian-Abkhazian problems. The Turkish government values its partnership with Georgia, but it is also under pressure to realign its policies in light of the geopolitical transformations in the region. It will represent a major challenge for Turkish diplomacy in the days ahead to engage Abkhazia without severing ties with Tbilisi.

    https://jamestown.org/program/turkish-abkhazia-ties-test-turkeys-strategic-partnership-with-georgia/
  • NATO Chief Says He’d Consider Brzezinski Plea for Russia Accord

    NATO Chief Says He’d Consider Brzezinski Plea for Russia Accord

    By James G. Neuger

    rasmussenSept. 1 (Bloomberg) — NATO said it would consider a proposal by former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski to tighten security arrangements with a Russian-led defense alliance to ease East-West tensions.

    NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he has an “open mind” toward ideas to soothe the strains between the former Cold War adversaries that peaked with Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia, a would-be NATO member.

    “We have to look closer into the possibilities of improving confidence between Russia and NATO,” Rasmussen said in an interview at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels yesterday. “I am prepared to look upon all ideas that serve confidence-building with an open mind.”

    Western governments are courting Russian help in securing supply lines for the 100,000 allied troops in Afghanistan, stemming the spread of nuclear weapons and in combating piracy off the coast of Somalia.

    Writing in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, Brzezinski called for a pact with the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, a seven-nation group cobbled together out of the remnants of the Soviet Union.

    Such an agreement would go beyond the periodic high-level NATO-Russia meetings that resumed in June after the 28-nation western alliance ended a diplomatic boycott to protest the Georgia invasion.

    Brzezinski, who served under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981, wrote of a need “to consolidate security in Europe by drawing Russia into a closer political and military association with the Euro-Atlantic community and to engage Russia in a wider web of global security that indirectly facilitates the fading of Russia’s lingering imperial ambitions.”

    ‘Strategic Partnership’

    Rasmussen urged a “strategic partnership” with Russia to ward off common threats such as terrorism.

    NATO-Russia ties were strained by Bush administration plans for a missile-defense system in eastern Europe and efforts to offer alliance membership to Ukraine and Georgia, two former Soviet republics.

    Relations broke down completely when Russia rolled over Georgia’s army in a five-day war to reestablish its sphere of influence. Russia later granted diplomatic recognition to two territories, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which declared independence and established military outposts in them.

    President Barack Obama set out to “reset” relations with the Kremlin, heralding an East-West thaw.

    Russian and NATO foreign ministers held their first post- Georgia-war meeting in Greece in June, agreeing to resume military-to-military cooperation.

    Rasmussen, 56, a former Danish prime minister who became alliance chief Aug. 1, said he had not yet read Brzezinski’s proposals and stressed that any outreach to Russia would not undermine NATO’s role as the bedrock of trans-Atlantic security.

    “The cornerstone of Euro-Atlantic security will still be NATO,” Rasmussen said.

    To contact the reporter on this story: James G. Neuger in Brussels atjneuger@bloomberg.net

    Source:  www.bloomberg.com,  August 31, 2009

  • PIRATES OF THE BLACK SEA

    PIRATES OF THE BLACK SEA

    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 Minister Sergei Shamba said. Georgia had
    seized and arrested several ships on the run to and from Abkhazia
    last month.
         Tbilisi in its turn only emphasized the resolve to board and
    detain all vessels entering territorial waters of Georgia,
    including the Abkhazian part, without permit.
         Sukhumi turned to Moscow and immediately obtained its promise
    of assistance. Ships navigating territorial waters of Abkhazia
    will be protected by Russian and Abkhazians border guards. “All
    attention was focused on the Abkhazian-Georgian land border. The
    situation at sea requires attention too,” Shamba announced.
         The Georgian Coast Guard detained 23 ships for “violation of
    the entry regulations” this year and nearly 70 over the last four
    years. The ships are almost always Turkish, Ukrainian, Russian,
    and Greek.
         “Seizing ships in neutral waters, Georgia commits acts of
    piracy. Our appeals to the UN and EU remain unanswered which only
    encourages Georgia. Tbilisi must have forgotten that Georgian
    ships pass us by on the way to Ukrainian, Bulgaria, and Greece and
    that we can respond in kind,” Shamba said.
         The minister said that the situation had been more or less
    tolerable until US Vice President Josef Biden’s visit to Georgia
    this spring. “The Georgian authorities must have been given
    assurances of some sort,” Shamba assumed. He announced that
    Georgia’s actions constitute a violation of the settlement
    agreement reached with the European Union’s help.
         Official Tbilisi pays no heed to Sukhumi’s protestations. It
    maintains that sailing into Abkhazian ports without authorization
    from the central government of Georgia is a violation that will
    not be tolerated.
         Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister David Dzhalagania said at
    the press conference this Monday that participation of Russia
    would be a height of cynicism. He added that Russia had already
    assaulted Georgia once.
         “Russia’s attempts to protect trespassers in the Georgian
    territorial waters will be appraised and treated as piracy.
    Freight traffic to Abkhazia without Tbilisi’s permit is a gross
    violation of the Georgian legislation,” State Minister for
    Reintegration Temur Yakobashvili said.
         Military expert Irakly Sesiashvili said that Tbilisi was
    trying to bite more than it could possibly chew. Attempts to
    prevent Russian ships from entering the local waters will lead to
    a dangerous confrontation or Georgia will have to cry uncle.
    Sesiashvili said the international community alone could settle
    the issue.

  • Russia to stop Georgian border guards from detaining ships in ‘Abkhaz waters’

    Russia to stop Georgian border guards from detaining ships in ‘Abkhaz waters’

    RIA-Novosti

    Moscow, 28 August: The Russian FSB (Federal Security Service) Coastguard, together with the Abkhaz border guards, will ensure the security of vessels entering Abkhaz territorial waters against their detention by Georgia. In part this is being done as part of the preparations for the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, the head of the border guard department – deputy head of the Russian FSB Border Guard Service, Lt-Gen Yevgeniy Inchin, told RIA Novosti on Friday (28 August).

    Georgia views Abkhazia as part of its territory and regards the delivery of cargo to Abkhazia by sea without Tbilisi’s permission as breach of the country’s legislation. Since the start of 2009 Georgia’s coastguard has detained 23 vessels in Abkhaz waters for various violations. Four of them were detained for the violation of the rules for entering waters of “occupied territories”.

    “At sea they are quite aggressive. Georgia regards entry into Abkhazia’s territorial waters as basis for taking various measures against vessels sailing under third countries’ flags, including measures of judicial nature,” said Inchin.

    In his words, the agreement between the Russian Federation and Abkhazia on border protection envisages taking joint action to ensure security in Abkhazia’s territorial waters.

    Asked whether Russian FSB’s coastguard will deprive the Georgian side of the ability to detain vessels sailing to and from Abkhazia Inchin said: “The FSB’s border guard department for Abkhazia has a group of boats which will be addressing this task, that is to say ensuring the untouchability (of vessels).”

    “Trust me, they will be doing this in an efficient and productive manner, as the ‘factor of Sochi’ and the forthcoming Olympic Games is in this case the determining one. All of this will happen, in the near future. At present we need to create all the conditions for this,” the FSB general said.

    Abkhaz border guards too will have border guard boats. They will be addressing the tasks relating to ensuring security in the water zone together with their colleagues from Russia, he added.

    “The tasks aren’t easy, but we will fulfil them,” he said. (Passage omitted: RIA recalls recent detention)

    (Interfax news agency quoted the head of the border guard squad of Abkhazia’s state security service, Zurab Marghania, as saying: “At present the Russian and Abkhaz border services are drawing up a joint action plan for the prevention of the Georgian border guards’ pirate-like actions in the Black Sea.”)