Independence means stability – Abkhazian foreign minister

By gaining independence in 2008 and seeking international recognition Abkhazia got more stability, co-operation, investment and real perspectives for the future, shared Abkhazia’s Foreign Minister Maksim Gvinjia.

Remembering the late Abkhazian President Sergey Bagapsh, who has been laid to rest on Thursday, Gvinjia acknowledged that Bagapsh was a smart, tolerant, strategic thinker who created a stable political system in the republic.Sergey Bagapsh, aged 62, died last weekend in a Moscow medical center after undergoing a surgery on his right lung. The next day his lungs stopped functioning, he was put on an artificial respirator, but later on doctors registered other complications which made it impossible to improve his critical condition.Thanks to Sergey Bagapsh’s personal efforts, Abkhazia succeeded in setting up relations with countries in Latin America. “We consider most of the ways to achieve international political for a but there are significant obstacles imposed by Western countries, by the EU and the US,” Maksim Gvinjia told RT, stressing that, particularly in Latin America, the US attempted to put maximum pressure on the local governments not to let to recognize Abkhazia or establish diplomatic relations with the republic, which proclaimed independence from Georgia nearly 20 years ago.“We are confronted not by actually Georgian diplomacy – we are confronted by the American diplomacy,” he concluded.Tbilisi may maintain that Abkhazia is a part of Georgia, but “saying that Abkhazia is a part of Georgia is equal to saying that Georgia is still a part of Russia – since Russia inherited obligations of the former Soviet Union.”The so-called “territorial integrity of Georgia” was recognized in violation of the international law so there is no use in repeating it over and over again, believes Gvinjia.The 08/08/08 war in South Ossetia only deteriorated Abkhazia further from Georgia, remembers the Abkhazian foreign minister. “We have not received any positive signal from Georgia.”In reality, Georgia continues to maintain an embargo on Abkhazia and do everything within its powers to prevent the country from conducting international business, and on top of all that provocations and kidnapping of Abkhazians done from the Georgian side of the border continue, so official Tbilisi might say whatever it wants, he maintains.“The most important thing is that we recognize ourselves,” Maksim Gvinjia said.