Abkhazia broke away together with South Ossetia in the 1990s following bloody conflicts in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse. Georgia's current pro-Western leadership has been seeking to recover its influence in the separatist regions and secure international support on the issue.
Abkhaz President Sergei Bagapsh and South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity said in their statement that should Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo be granted independence, it would be a solid confirmation that international conflicts can be resolved based on principles other than territorial integrity.
"In case of a 'Kosovo precedent' we will act more decisively and demand the observance of unified standards to deal with similar conflicts," the statement said.
The leaders addressed the statement to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Chairman of the Council of member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, OSCE Chairman Miguel Moratinos and Council of Europe Secretary General Terry Davis.
Russia has repeatedly expressed its concern that Kosovo's independence could set a precedent for other breakaway republics, including in Georgia's Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Moldova's Transdnestr.
Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview published earlier Monday that Russia does not agree that the Kosovo issue is different from the conflict situation in the former Soviet republics.
"We are not convinced by statements from our partners that the Kosovo issue is unique," Putin said. "There are no arguments to prove that the Kosovo issue is in some ways different from the situation in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, or in Transdnestr."
As a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council, Russia opposes a plan proposed by UN special envoy for Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari, which calls for internationally supervised sovereignty for the province dominated by ethnic Albanians, and says the final decision on the status of the province should satisfy both Kosovar authorities and Belgrade.
