TBILISI, August 3 (RIA Novosti) - Abkhazia has agreed to participate in a security meeting scheduled Thursday here, said UN special representative to Georgia Heidi Tagliavini.
I spoke to [foreign minister of the self-declared republic of Abkhazia] Sergei Shamba on the phone this morning, and he said he would come, Tagliavini told a briefing Wednesday.
Shamba will head the Abkhazian delegation at the upcoming negotiations. The Georgian chief delegate will be State Minister for Conflict Settlement Georgy Khaindrava. The meeting will also bring together representatives of the Group of Friends of the UN Secretary General for Georgia: Russia, the United States, France, Germany, and Britain.
Georgia and Abkhazia have more than enough to discuss in the area of security guarantees, said Tagliavini.
She said the issue of security guarantees was first raised at the Yalta conference in 1999 where officials on both sides asked the international community to guarantee that combat activities would not resume in Abkhazia and to provide for the decent and safe return of refugees to their places of residence.
We are ready to discuss any issues regarding security guarantees at the meeting due on August 4 and proposals to draft a document or a statement on non-resumption of combat activities and return of refugees, Tagliavini said.
It might not happen right away because it is difficult enough to draft a declaration to that effect. It will be the first meeting where the sides will lay out their proposals, and I hope that we will be able to make some progress towards the document, she said.
Tagliavini said she wanted the sides to sign such a statement in the presence of the representatives of the UN Group of Friends.
