18 February 2004, 23:24
Abkhazian Foreign Ministry blames Georgia for aspiration to impose economic blockade on breakaway republic
The Abkhazian Foreign Ministry called the statements by Mikhail Saakashvili in which he tried to picture the Abkhazian side as involved in the recent tragic events in Moscow provocative. In the course of his first visit to Moscow on February 10-12, the new president of Georgia asserted that the territory of Abkhazia was used to convey drugs as transit goods and to expand terrorism. He also said Georgia did not intend to bear with the lack of control over Abkhazia. Besides, when Mikhail Saakashvili met with Russian businessmen, he urged them to make all investments in the Abkhazian economy on the basis of the Georgian legislation and to register them in Georgia. Thereupon the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Abkhazia announced that "such statements are made with the purpose of creating Abkhazia's negative image in the opinion of the Russian and international public." The Abkhazian Foreign Ministry holds that "the Georgian side aspires to impose an economic blockade on Abkhazia, and both her actions at sea and the aspiration to control investments in Abkhazia are evidence of it." "In view of the fact that Abkhazia is an independent state, which is not connected with Georgia from the legal point of view, carrying out the economic cooperation with our country in agreement with Georgia is illegal and therefore impossible," reads the document.
Author: Anzhela Kuchuberiya, CK correspondent Source: Caucasian Knot
