Abashidze-Karasin Talks to be Held in Prague Next Week

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry informed, Zurab Abashidze, the special representative of the Georgian Prime Minister, and Grigory Karasin, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, will meet in Prague to hold talks on July 15.

The negotiations between the Russian and the Georgian side will be held in an enlarged format. Representatives of the Ministry of Transport of Russia will also participate in the talks.

A telephone conversation was held between the top negotiators in which they discussed the practical issues of bilateral Russian-Georgian relations, including the preparations for the next meeting in Prague.

In June, the Russian Deputy Minister also said that he might discuss the issue of restoring the Abkhazian railway with the Georgian representative.

Since the August War in 2008, Georgia and Russia have been negotiating in the Geneva format - an international mediation process over Georgia’s breakaway regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia. To date, the main achievement of this forum has been Russia’s decision to withdraw its military troops from Perevi, a small Georgian village beyond the South Ossetian administrative border.

When the new government of Georgia came to power in 2012, the Abashidze-Karasin bilateral talks were initiated by Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, on a promise to improve relations with Russia. As opposed to the Geneva format, the Abashidze-Karasin talks do not focus on political issues.

Following the first meeting in December 2012, Russia opened its market for Georgian wine and mineral water. In this format Official Tbilisi is also negotiating about allowing the export of agricultural products in the Russian Federation.

Georgia’s trade problems with Russia were severed in 2006 when Georgian wine was banned by Moscow, ostensibly because of low quality. Later there was expulsion of Georgians from Russia, on which Georgia won a case against Official Moscow in Strasbourg Court on July 3.

Nino Japarashvili