Analysis: Post-mortems on the German plan on Abkhazia

Author: Vladimir Socor, Eurasia Daily Monitor Moscow refined at the last moment its method of killing Berlin’s plan for resolving the Abkhazia conflict. Rather than rejecting the plan outright, as it did initially, Moscow received German Minister of Foreign Frank-Walter Steinmeier courteously and seemed prepared to discuss the plan, even terming it a step in the right direction. Moscow, however, killed the plan on the spot by setting unfulfillable pre-conditions. As the Russian official news agency commented, that response “has put a full stop” to the plan (Itar-Tass, July 21). Russian President Dmitry Medvedev treated Steinmeier to the special courtesy of a “midnight tea” during the night of July 18-19, only to repeat the pre-conditions: Georgian withdrawal from the upper Kodori Valley and the unconditional signing of a... [read full story]