Georgia:--Saakashvili Strikes Ajaria Deal

[Aidoneus]

Saakashvili Strikes Ajaria Deal
The Georgian president and the Ajarian leader have averted the threat of civil war – for now.
By Eteri Turadze in Batumi and Dmitry Avaliani in Tbilisi (CRS No. 223, 18-Mar-04)

A four-hour meeting between Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili and rebel leader Aslan Abashidze, the head of the Black Sea region of Ajaria, ended in a breakthrough on March 18 with Abashidze giving up key powers that he has enjoyed for years.

Saakashvili announced that a blockade imposed on Ajaria by the central authorities would be lifted at midnight. The Georgian authorities had begun blockading the autonomous republic after the local authorities turned back Saakashvili as he attempted to visit the region on March 14.

A visit by parliamentary speaker Nino Burjanadze on March 17 appears to have broken the deadlock. Under intense pressure from Tbilisi and with his closest ally, Moscow, officially proclaiming neutrality, Abashidze made major concessions.

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Saakashvili said that a new post of “representative of the president of Georgia” would be set up in the autonomous republic, and that its holder would share responsibility for the customs service and the port of Batumi – which have for the last ten years provided the main revenues for Ajaria and the Abashidze administration.

Abashidze, a former minister in Communist-era Georgia, has turned his native province into a semi-independent fiefdom over the last ten years, refusing to send budget revenues to Tbilisi, not travelling there himself, and establishing close relations with Moscow politicians and the Russian military base in Batumi.

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http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/cau/cau_200403_223_1_eng.txt