SUKHUMI, June 13 (RIA Novosti) - Three breakaway regions in former Soviet republics currently embroiled in "frozen conflicts" may consider forming a joint peacekeeping contingent if Russian peacekeepers withdraw, the president of Abkhazia said Tuesday.
Leaders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia - both in Georgia - and of Moldova's Transdnestr region are meeting in the Abkhaz capital, Sukhumi, to discuss trilateral relations, conflict resolution and peacekeeping missions.
"If Russian peacekeepers are withdrawn from the conflict zones we might consider the creation of a joint peacekeeping contingent of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdnestr," Sergei Bagapsh told a news conference after a meeting with the South Ossetia and Transdnestr presidents.
Russia has had peacekeepers in all three regions since bloody conflicts erupted at the beginning of the 1990s, but NATO, Georgia and Moldova have been urging a military pullout from former Soviet republics under the 1999 Istanbul Commitments, part of the amended Conventional Forces in Europe treaty.
Bagapsh also said the unrecognized republics were not planning to form a military alliance and had agreed to resolve all disputes through negotiation.
The leaders of the three breakaway regions also discussed the formation of an association similar to GUAM, a regional organization uniting Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova, but agreed to postpone any decision until conditions were right.
"We decided not to hurry with the creation of the association and make preparatory steps to ensure that it [the decision] does not remain only on paper," the Abkhazian foreign minister said after the meeting.
