Ukraine initiates Georgia’s territorial problems at UN
By Tea Mariamidze
Friday, December 9
Georgia’s Foreign Minister, Mikheil Janelidze, thanked Ukrainian delegation for initiating a discussion on Georgia’s territorial problems at the United Nations (UN) Security Council on December 6.
Janelidze thinks that is a result of Georgia’s active work with its partners.
“Presenting Georgia’s positions and supporting positions from the EU Security Council member countries was very important,” said Janelidze.
Georgia’s Foreign Ministry said that during the closed session, the Ukrainian delegation condemned Russia’s actions and the ratification of military deal with Georgia’s breakaway region Abkhazia, and assessed them as a step towards the factual annexation of Georgia’s occupied regions.
“Other partner states also made statements supporting Georgia’s territorial integrity. Not a single member of the 15-member Security Council, but Russia, expressed an opposite position,” the Georgian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
The information about Ukraine’s initiative was released by Ukrainian web portal LB.ua, which published an interview with Ukraine's permanent representative at the UN, Volodymyr Yelchenko, who said the Ukrainian and other delegations condemned Russia's actions which constitute an attempt to legitimize the illegal deployment of Russian troops on the occupied territory of Georgia.
“It was pointed out that Russia is blatantly violating its international commitments, in particular the cease-fire agreement reached on 12 August 2008,” Yechenko told LB.ua
Georgia’s main opposition party, the United National Movement (UNM), criticized the government for not being actively involved in the process.
“It was strange that we learnt this news from the Ukrainian media. In general, Georgian government does not properly raise Russian annexation issue before the UN,” said the UNM member, Elene Khoshtaria.
Political analyst Batu Kutelia thinks Georgia and Ukraine should together speak up about the threats coming from Russia, as they face the same threat.
“I think this opportunity is not used by the Georgian government. From the point of view of our partners abroad, Georgia and Ukraine are not working closely enough on this kind of issues. That is why I think that Ukraine’s initiative was a bright spot,” he stated.
