Georgia may withdraw from agreements authorising the Russian-led peacekeeping operations in Abkhazia and South Ossetia in response to Russia’s decision to lift sanctions on Abkhazia, MP Kote Gabashvili, the chairman of the parliamentary committee for foreign affairs, said on March 7.

“This Russian decision unties our hands, enabling us to unilaterally and without any prior notification withdraw from agreements related with the conflict zones,” MP Gabashvili said, referring to treaties mandating Russian peacekeepers in the Abkhaz and South Ossetian conflict zones.

The Georgian parliament passed a resolution in July 2006 instructing the government to undertake relevant procedures for the immediate suspension of Russian peacekeeping operations in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. However, no concrete steps have been taken in this regard since then.

Speaking in Parliament, MP Gabashvili also compared Russia’s withdrawal from the CIS 1996 treaty to “an annexation.”
 
“We [the Georgian parliament] should adopt a statement sending a clear signal that we are ready for anything in order to restore Georgia’s territorial integrity,” he said. He called for consultations with the opposition to achieve cross-party consensus on the matter.