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Interview with Toivo Klaar
Toivo Klaar, the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia, provided his insights in an interview with JAMnews, reflecting on his decade-long experience in the region. You can read the full interview on JAMnews while here we share only the part that touched on the Georgian-Abkhaz issues.
Serving in his current role since November 2017, Klaar will transition to a new position on September 1, 2024, as the EU Ambassador to Uzbekistan.
Georgia, Geneva Talks, and Abkhazia/South Ossetia isolation
● Let’s turn to Georgia. The 61st round of the Geneva International Discussions (GID) took place at the end of June 2024 and the next one is scheduled for the end of this year. How would you assess the work carried out in this framework? As one of the very few international representatives who are able to visit also Abkhazia and South Ossetia, could you share some of your impressions of the situation there?
The Geneva International Discussions are useful as a conflict management tool. And indeed the security situation on the ground has remained relatively stable and manageable since the GID held its first meeting in October 2008.
But – contrary to many public perceptions – it was never designed to actually resolve the conflict and therefore we are naturally seeing quite a lot of frustration on all sides, because it has not managed to bring the end of conflict any closer.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia are beautiful places. Both have given me the impression of being isolated pieces of something broken. You feel that there is an abnormal isolation of these regions from the rest of the South Caucasus. This is a consequence both of isolation by others and of self-isolation.
The wounds of conflict are present everywhere in these two regions. And this applies to many places on territory controlled by Tbilisi as well.
Therefore, even though people in Abkhazia and South Ossetia manage to somehow build their lives, they are not able to realise their full potential due to the political stalemate, and a lot of human capital and creativity is lost.
People in Tskhinvali, Sukhumi and elsewhere in South Ossetia and Abkhazia could achieve so much more, and do so much more, not to mention the ethnic Georgians living in Akhalgori or Gali, who are caught in a perpetual limbo.
On the impacts of Russia’s war in Ukraine and Georgia’s ‘second front’ narrative
● How has Russia’s war on Ukraine affected your activities? Have you also been affected by the “second front” narrative?
Russia’s war against Ukraine has made my engagement much more complicated.
International access to Abkhazia has been increasingly restricted, including for me. While all participants in the Geneva International Discussions remain committed to this format, they are even less inclined today to engage in substantial discussion than they were previously.
Furthermore, I feel that those people who have committed themselves to peace-building activities and have been engaged in dialogue projects over the years are particularly anxious. I sense a concern that a new Iron Curtain could come down, putting Abkhazia and South Ossetia irreversibly on the Russian side for the near future.
The absurd “second front” narrative, which after all was created solely to discredit domestic opponents in Georgia, has added confusion to an already very complex situation.
Talks about a “second front” and a mysterious “global war party” erode trust when trust is already in short supply.
So yes, there is a negative impact and Georgian politicians who are fuelling such incendiary talk must – I believe – also assume responsibility for this.
This kind of talk has only served to reinforce arguments by those in Tskhinvali and Sukhumi who wish to emphasise Georgian aggressive intentions and has therefore also served to undermine the message given through initiatives like “Steps to a better Future” and others.
On Georgia’s EU prospects and the need for Georgian-Abkhaz and Georgian-Ossetian dialogue
● What would be your advice to the Georgian authorities? And also to your interlocutors in both Sukhumi and Tskhinvali?
From my personal point of view, my main advice to the Georgian authorities is to come back to the objective of building a mature democracy, based on the rule of law where human and minority rights are protected.
Georgia needs to be seen as attractive for people in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and stability, democracy, and rights and rule based order is a big part of that.
Georgia has a historic window of opportunity and the EU integration process can have a solid transformative power. The people of Georgia will have a serious choice to make in this regard in the upcoming elections.
My second advice is to develop more contacts across the divide and to engage in more informal dialogue on possible practical steps, including with the de facto authorities.
This dialogue does take place on the margins of the GID, between the various participants, but it is too limited.
I believe that, at the higher level, the Government of Georgia could make unilateral offers and thus stimulate similar steps from Sukhumi or Tskhinvali in return.
Engaging in “trade-offs” on practical issues for the benefit of people would create positive dynamics. This would require from the actors involved to be more pragmatic when it comes to their respective conflict narratives and more realistic about what can be achieved here and now.
We also have to remember that there were conflicts in Georgia in the early 1990s, which have left deep scars. There is a strong need to address them in parallel to the discussions on the consequences of the August 2008 war.
On the lack of the real reconciliation between populations in the South Caucasus
One of my biggest concerns throughout the years of my engagement in the South Caucasus was always the near absence of real reconciliation between populations.
There are all kinds of confidence building activities being carried out on a community level, many of them funded by the EU. But the strongly selective and biased conflict narratives on all sides hinder concrete progress on reconciliation.
All sides see themselves exclusively as victims, wait for a deus ex machina to solve the conflict on their terms, and are not very willing to talk about their own mistakes and responsibility for the emergence, escalation and continuation of the conflicts.
With such an approach, there is a real risk that newly emerging windows of opportunity in the future might be missed, as politicians and populations on all sides have biased views on realities and thus unrealistic expectations of each other and of outsiders, and unrealistic assessments about the steps needed and the possibility of achieving progress on their terms alone.
Interview with Toivo Klaar
