Hope For Georgia, Russia Direct Talks

By Cernig

Throughout the Russia-Georgia conflict, the European Union has underlined the new multi-polar nature of international relations by not waiting for the US to get over its kneejerk Russia-hating and its lobbyist-greased love for the fable of Georgia as tiny nation attacked without good reason. Now, EU-led talks have begun to bear some hopeful first fruit, with Georgia and Russia meeting face to face in talks alongside other inetersted parties.

In all, eight parties met behind closed doors at the U.N.'s European headquarters in Geneva for the one-day talks and agreed to meet again next month, EU representative Pierre Morel said.

"Today we have taken a big step forward," Morel said. "All of the participants have recognized that the security situation remains quite unsatisfactory."

... Morel said it was the first time that all of the parties had met directly. An initial attempt at negotiations broke down last month, in part over disagreements whether representatives from Georgia's two breakaway provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, should take part.

Maxim Gvindzhiya of Abkhazia's separatist government said his delegation and one from South Ossetia attended on an informal basis this time to keep the talks on track.

The other participants were the EU, the U.N., Russia, Georgia, the United States and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried said the talks "went far better" than last time.

"There were productive discussions of some of the tough issues. (But) there remain vast areas of fundamental differences," Fried said. "There were and are a lot of people with guns ... who just want to shoot."

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called the talks "a positive step."

Russia, meanwhile, said it reiterated during the meeting that Georgia needs to pledge not to attack South Ossetia or Abkhazia, and that other countries should refrain from supplying Tbilisi with offensive military weapons.

Karasin said he came away with a "mixed" assessment of the meeting, but added now there is a "sense of hope."

Johan Verbeke, special U.N. envoy for Georgia, said the sides had agreed on methods to demarcate borders and had begun work on security issues and the return of refugees.

"I'd call this a quantum leap," said Verbeke. "All of the delegations did speak, all of the delegations listened."

And it looks more and more as if all that talk about a newly aggressive and resurgent Russia trying to restore its lost Empire was just desperate rhetoric, perhaps a simple psychological comfort-blankie for those hawks deeply disappointed that America is losing its own hegemony.