Georgia Poses Hurdle for U.S.-Russia Ties

Georgia Poses Hurdle for U.S.-Russia Ties

By ELLEN BARRY

Published: March 7, 2011

But it is far too early to declare that project a success. Among the remaining sticking points is the fact that Georgia, which joined the trade group in 2000, has the power to block the admission of any new member.

For a decade, while grievances mounted between Russia and Georgia, the Georgian government has sought policy changes from Russia in exchange for its approval. Negotiations foundered in 2008, and a few months later, when war broke out over the separatist territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, further talks began to look like a lost cause.

On Monday, with the 17-year process of Russia’s entry nearing its endgame, Georgian officials confirmed that they would sit down with their Russian counterparts in Switzerland, which “has been mandated to act as a mediator between both countries,” said a spokeswoman for the Swiss Foreign Ministry.

The issue is a difficult and occasionally painful one for all the parties involved: for Russia, which must reach out to a government it has demonized; for the United States, which has made Russia’s membership in the trade group into a central goal; and for Georgia, which has a limited window in which to negotiate before its allies become impatient.

For Georgia, “the W.T.O. issue is a double-edged sword,” said Svante E. Cornell, research director for the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

“On the one hand, it gives them leverage,” Mr. Cornell said. “On the other hand, it risks making them look like they’re the problem. It risks isolating them.”

First Deputy Foreign Minister Nikoloz Vashakidze of Georgia told reporters on Monday that the talks were a Russian initiative, and that they would start on Wednesday or Thursday. He did not say what Georgia’s conditions were. But in the past, Georgia’s negotiators have asked for a role in customs administration on borders between the separatist territories and Russia.

Giorgi Kandelaki, deputy chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the Georgian Parliament, said he would like to see international observers on the Russian side of the border, along the lines of a European Union monitoring mission that is based outside Transnistria, a separatist region in Moldova. The observers would pick up the smuggling of goods or drugs, as well as movements of Russian military hardware, Mr. Kandelaki said.

“If they don’t agree, there will be no W.T.O. accession for Russia,” he said. “Georgia does not want to be a hurdle. But Georgia is not the reason for this hurdle.”

He said the negotiations offered Georgia “a good opportunity to remind the international community” of the breakaway territories, which only Russia and three other countries have formally recognized as sovereign nations. Two and a half years after Russian forces routed the Georgian army in South Ossetia, tens of thousands of ethnic Georgians remain displaced from their homes in the enclave, and Russia has moved in heavy weaponry, including tactical ballistic missiles and rocket launchers.

“It is an ongoing, dynamic issue, and it has direct consequences for Euro-Atlantic security,” Mr. Kandelaki said. “The problem hasn’t gone away.”

Maksim Y. Medvedkov, Russia’s chief negotiator on accession to the World Trade Organization, did not respond to a request for comment.

American policy makers will keep their distance from the process, despite a pressing interest in seeing Russia join the trade group. Michael McFaul, a senior adviser to President Obama, called the talks “a bilateral issue, not a trilateral issue.”

Negotiators in Moscow “understand that they have to deal with this issue seriously, and that this is not just something they can wait for us to make the Georgians go along, because we’re not going to do that,” Mr. McFaul said in a conference call on Friday. Georgian leaders, he said, are prepared to “deal specifically with the economic and trade issues that are involved here, and not make it a bigger debate.”

Anders Aslund, a Russia specialist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said Georgia’s government should press Moscow to lift all the trade sanctions imposed in 2006, when Russia’s sanitary inspector banned the import of Georgian wines and mineral water, a major blow to the smaller country’s economy. Negotiating on customs and border issues would prove thornier, since it would touch on “the formal recognition of which border is valid,” Mr. Aslund said.

He said Georgia’s veto power was one of only two or three issues — like intellectual property rights and agricultural subsidies — that were keeping Russia from membership in the trade organization. Members acknowledge Georgia’s right to strike a bargain with Russia for its consent, Mr. Aslund said, “but the W.T.O. accession for Russia is really moving on.”

“Right now Georgia has great leverage, but it will soon disappear,” he said. “They should use this in an effective fashion.”

Russian Missiles Only "Temporarily" in South Ossetia

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/63025
March 7, 2011 - 4:58pm, by Joshua Kucera

A few weeks ago Russia announced that it was deploying new missiles to South Ossetia, eliciting an angry response from Georgia. And at the time, the unnamed Russian official who was leaking the news didn't try to avoid making it sound like a provocation; he said the missiles were "capable to effectively repel any aggression from Tbilisi."

But now, Russia seems to be walking that announcement back, saying the deployment would just be temporary. Via Civil.ge, quoting RIA Novosti:

"Tochka-U installations were deployed on the territory of South Ossetia for participation in the military exercises of our military base; they were deployed there temporarily," he said.

Karasin, however, did not specify when the rockets would be withdrawn.

That's a positive move. The recent Center for American Progress report called the missile deployment (along with another rocket deployment) the "most obvious contributing factor to Georgian insecurity." U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is on his way to Moscow, and that's the sort of thing that a diplomatic partner does as a friendly gesture. So can we thank the reset for this?

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