The de facto Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia’s Russian-occupied Abkhazia region has called on Tbilisi to abandon “confrontational rhetoric,” responding to comments from the Georgian Civil Aviation Agency over potential regular flights by Russian airlines to the Sokhumi airport.
In a statement, the self-proclaimed authorities of Abkhazia referenced recent remarks by Georgian politicians suggesting openness to dialogue with Abkhazia and another occupied Tskhinvali region.
They further cited last year election comments made by Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder and honorary chair of the ruling Georgian Dream party, that Tbilisi “will have to apologize to the Ossetians for the 2008 war [with Russia] and punish the former, United National Movement officials”.
“Instead of a pragmatic approach aimed at resolving relations, the Georgian government continues to make formulaic, politically motivated, and unrealistic statements that create additional tension,” the statement read. “The latest attacks by the Georgian government are an attempt to delay irreversible processes.”
The de facto ministry also accused Georgia of undermining the possibility of dialogue and called for a legally binding agreement on the non-use of force, along with “a new stage of constructive dialogue that takes into account the political and legal reality created after the conflicts of 1992-1993 and 2008.”
The Georgian Civil Aviation Agency had earlier told the media that any operation of the “so-called airport” in occupied Sokhumi was illegal.
The agency warned that foreign airlines flying to Abkhazia would be violating the basic principles of the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation.
A test flight from Moscow to Sokhumi was conducted by the Russian airline YuVT Aero on February 7, and reports indicated that regular flights between Russia and the occupied region were planned to commence on May 1.
