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Nino Burdzhanadze looks the other way. Georgia's speaker expects Abkhazia and South Ossetia to get int'l recognition in 2008

TBILISI (Tiraspol Times) - Georgia's speaker said on Friday that she expects Abkhazia and South Ossetia to receive international diplomatic recognition early next year.

Speaking to opposition protestors who demanded early Georgian elections to topple the government of Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, Nino Burdzhanadze, the speaker of Georgia's parliament, said that "elections would not be timely" during a period when Abkhazia and South Ossetia are expected to have their 'de facto' independence recognized.

Official Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported that the Georgian government expects Serbia's breakaway province Kosovo to receive independence next spring, and Russia to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia in response.

The two countries are already de facto independent republics and have all the prerequisites for international statehood except diplomatic recognition by other countries. Georgia maintains a long standing territorial claim to the two areas, who declared independence after the fall of the Soviet Union. Georgia has been unable to enforce it for the past fifteen years and the two new states are made up of populations which strongly favor independence over the rule of Georgia, with whom they fought bitter wars for independence in the past decade.

Group of friendlies

Kosovo will presumably only be recognized by a limited number of countries, led by the United States in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244, which affirms the sovereignty of the then Yugoslavia, to which Serbia is the successor state.

In the same way, Georgia only expects Abkhazia to get limited international recognition and not obtain United Nations membership immediately. Russia will be among the group of countries that will extend recognition to Abkhazia in 2008, and the move will be helped along by a "club of friendly countries" who will extend international diplomatic recognition as well.

This was explained in an interview with MP Konstantin Zatulin, Duma deputy and director of the Institute of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Published this August, the influential foreign policy specialist said that recognition of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Pridnestrovie (Transdniestria) should be given by other countries first, and then by Russia in a second wave of adhesion.

" - It is necessary in the process of international negotiations to gather a unique "club" of countries that could recognize them, and such countries already exist. For instance, Belarus or Venezuela, whose parliament, by the way, sent election observers to Tskhinvali," he said.

See also:
» Abkhazia, South Ossetia to UN: "We're next" [1]
» Abkhazia expects int'l recognition after Kosovo [2]
» Kosovo and Transdniester both reject "political games" over their independence [3]

Interview:
» Konstantin Zatulin: "There exists a group of countries ready to recognize PMR" [4]