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RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN RELATIONS
ARCHIL GEGESHIDZE,
Senior Fellow at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, Tbilisi
After the Russian ambassador Vyacheslav Kovalenko had come back to Georgia early in this year, hope emerged that the relations between the two countries would improve. But little change followed the ambassador’s coming back. We believed that Russia would be gradually softening its policy towards Georgia. But that is not happening. More than that, a number of Georgians have been deported from Russia again. All those facts including the deportations of thousands of our fellow citizens in violation of human rights (several persons died during the deportations) are really disappointing.
And yet, I would not regard Georgia’s bringing the action against Russia to the European Court of Human Rights as strengthening of the positions of “hawks” in the President Mikheil Saakashvili’s administration. As a matter of fact all the members of the Georgian government are unanimous about the Georgian-Russian relations and the decisions are made on the basis of the current state of affairs.
Apart from that, the action was not brought to enlist more support of the West. The Georgians believe that Europe understands their country’s interests and backs the policy pursued by the Georgian authorities. So, Georgia does not need any extra (especially political) support from Europe.
The Georgian officials hope that the action to the European Court of Human Rights will help them formulate Georgia’s complaints and that they will be documented.
I concede that the bringing of the action may provoke Moscow’s severe reaction. Russia may behave irrationally. The Georgian officials are concerned that Russia will unilaterally recognize the sovereignty of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. To a certain degree Russia’s behavior will be determined by the solution of the Kosovo’s problem. But whatever is the solution on Kosovo, I believe that this course of events is less probable.
In its turn, this would be provoked by the fact that it is difficult to explain Russia’s behavior in a rational way. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Russia stands up for the observation of all the international agreements and standards. Russia’s unilateral recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia would be against its principles. It would be extremely hard for Russia to provide reasons for such a decision not only to Georgia, but also to the world community.
These considerations make me hope that Russia will not take such an inadequate and aggressive step, but we can not override this possibility.
April 2, 2007
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