Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06TBILISI2866
2006-10-30 08:34:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Tbilisi
Cable title:  

A/S FRIED'S MEETING WITH GEORGIAN FOREIGN MINISTER

Tags:  PREL GG 
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OO RUEHDBU RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHSI #2866/01 3030834
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 300834Z OCT 06
FM AMEMBASSY TBILISI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4487
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TBILISI 002866 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EUR DAS BRYZA AND EUR/CARC

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/18/2016
TAGS: PREL GG
SUBJECT: A/S FRIED'S MEETING WITH GEORGIAN FOREIGN MINISTER
BEZHUASHVILI


Classified By: Ambassador John F. Tefft for reasons 1.4(b) & (d).

Summary
-------
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TBILISI 002866

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EUR DAS BRYZA AND EUR/CARC

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/18/2016
TAGS: PREL GG
SUBJECT: A/S FRIED'S MEETING WITH GEORGIAN FOREIGN MINISTER
BEZHUASHVILI


Classified By: Ambassador John F. Tefft for reasons 1.4(b) & (d).

Summary
--------------

1. (C) Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili told A/S
Fried October 18 that recent Russian statements and actions
indicated that Russia had decided to launch an all-out
diplomatic assault on Georgia, trying to marginalize the U.S.
from the Group of Friends, targeting GUAM, and working to
divide the EU on Georgia. Bezhuashvili said he hoped to
resume discussions with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov on
the margins of the November 1 BSEC ministerial, and he
expressed openness to a German idea of Parliament Speaker
Burjanadze traveling to Moscow. Fried stressed that
confrontations with Russia worked against Georgia's long-term
interests, in large part by raising concerns in Europe, and
he questioned whether Georgia should invest so much of its
political capital on the issue where Russia has the most
leverage: the separatist conflicts. Bezhuashvili said the
Georgian government was very worried about a Russian-prompted
gas crisis this winter. He said he and Energy Minister
Gilauri would travel to Iran in the coming days to discuss
buying Iranian gas if Russian and Azeri options prove
impossible. Fried urged caution in dealing with Iran. End
Summary.

Relations with Russia
--------------

2. (C) Fried began the lunch meeting by stressing U.S.
concerns about Georgia's deteriorating relations with Russia
and the negative effect this deterioration was having on
European views of Georgia. He asked Bezhuashvili where he
saw the situation going. Bezhuashvili noted that Russian
President Putin had recently been quoted as saying he would
like to hear from his military and civilian advisors how
"protected" Georgia was by its patrons abroad. Bezhuashvili
said it was his opinion that Russia had decided to launch an
all-out diplomatic offensive to test Georgia's international
support. Examples of this include the Russian efforts to get
a reference to the Georgian operation in the Kodori Gorge
into the recent UN Security Council resolution on Abkhazia,
working to marginalize the U.S. from other members of the
Group of Friends, targeting GUAM through approaches to

Moldova and possibly Ukraine, working to divide the EU, and
even attempting to influence Washington through public
relations firms. Nevertheless, Bezhuashvili thought the
Russians had made mistakes in this campaign, especially in
allowing xenophobic rhetoric and deporting large numbers of
Georgians from Russia. Noting that one Georgian citizen had
recently died after being held for twenty days awaiting
deportation, Bezhuashvili said the Georgians had been working
with lawyers on a strong interstate case to take to the
European Court of Human Rights.


3. (C) Bezhuashvili said he had had difficulty contacting
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov over the last two weeks, and
he understood from his Azeri counterpart that Lavrov had
indicated he needed "some time" before resuming dialogue with
Georgia. Bezhuashvili said he intended to travel to Moscow
for the November 1 BSEC Ministerial -- an event he would not
normally attend -- in order to meet with Lavrov. He added,
however, that Lavrov had all but admitted in previous
conversations that the MFA was not at the center of Russian
policy making on Georgia. Bezhuashvili said he could only
guess that the FSB, GRU, and Presidential Administration had
taken the lead. He said that in the past Lavrov had often
been unable to answer his questions about what Russia wanted
from Georgia, although Lavrov had assured him Russia would
not annex Georgian territory. Bezhuashvili said his deputy
had recently asked Lavrov at a CIS Ministerial in Minsk when
Russian Embassy personnel would return to Tbilisi.
Bezhuashvili told Fried that Georgia would be ready to help
the Russians find a face-saving way to return. He said
Christoph Heusgen, foreign policy advisor to German
Chancellor Merkel, had recently told the Georgians that
Merkel had suggested to Putin that Georgian Parliament
Speaker Burjanadze visit Moscow, and Putin had agreed.
Bezhuashvili said this was not a bad idea, as a follow-up to
his own meeting with Lavrov at BSEC. Bezhuashvili said
Georgian behavior toward Russia over the past two weeks had
been careful and responsible. Fried asked about Defense
Minister Okruashvili's reported comments to the press that
war with Russia was inevitable; Bezhuashvili said he talked
to Okruashvili himself and this report was a fabrication.


4. (C) Fried said there was concern in Washington that
Russia's efforts to isolate Georgia and to prevent its
integration with the West were having some success, and that
European governments had been greatly concerned by the
confrontation over the Russian spies. Fried said that he too

TBILISI 00002866 002 OF 003


had been angered by the xenophobic Russian response to the
incident, but he stressed that Georgia was still on the
tactical defensive, playing on a field laid out by the
Russians. He said that Georgia faced a choice -- previously
faced by the Baltic states and others in the former Communist
bloc -- between the short-term gratification of quarreling
with Russia and the achievement of long-term goals. He
stressed that the Europeans feared being drawn into
Russian-Georgian conflicts. He added that there are certain
issues where the Russians have leverage: the economy
(although that is a wasting asset) and the frozen conflicts.
Fried said that, given this, he questioned the Georgians'
decision to make the conflicts their top priority; it was the
one issue where the Russians had the most opportunity to
thwart them and to generate crises that would weaken Western
support for Georgia.


5. (C) Fried asked Bezhuashvili if he was happy with
developments over the past six months. Bezhuashvili said yes
and no -- "maybe more no than yes" -- but argued that some
positives had come out of the spy scandal. He said the
Western media and governments could now no longer ignore
Russian human rights violations and the parallels between the
current treatment of Georgians in Russia to the treatment of
Jews decades ago. Deputy Foreign Minister Batu Kutelia, who
until recently was Georgia's intelligence chief, said the
publicity given to the spying arrests also had an internal
purpose: to deter the growing number of Georgians who
accepted money from the Russians in exchange for information.
Separately, at a dinner that night, the new head of the
intelligence services, Ana Zhvania, argued that the internal
threat to Georgia from Russian spies -- and those whom they
pay off -- is growing and that the public handling of the spy
case was needed to act as a deterrent to domestic spying by
Georgians.

The Conflicts
--------------

6. (C) Bezhuashvili agreed the conflicts were a weak point
for Georgia, although he thought the Russians would continue
to create problems with the conflicts even if Georgia put
less emphasis on them. Or alternatively, he speculated that
Russia might begin to propagandize within Georgia that the
Saakashvili government was downplaying its most visible
pledge: to re-unite the country. Fried agreed that Georgia
could not be passive on the conflicts, but he advised
focusing on areas where the Europeans agreed and where there
was some chance of progress, such as the donors' economic
rehabilitation project in South Ossetia, and efforts to
internationalize the peacekeepers and police. Bezhuashvili
said the government was in a permanent dialogue with
Parliament, which was pushing for Georgia to end Russian
peacekeeping. Bezhuashvili said that in his view it is not
the right time for such a decision, but added that it could
not be stopped forever. He asked if the U.S. thought the
Georgian call for new negotiating formats for the conflicts
-- especially South Ossetia -- was counterproductive. Fried
said he agreed that current formats were unbalanced, but an
endless confrontation over them was not in the Georgians'
interest. Turning to Kodori, Fried said the U.S. did not
object in principle to the Georgian operation, although the
violations of the 1994 Moscow Agreement that accompanied it
had hurt the Georgians in the UN Security Council resolution
debate and should not be repeated. He said Georgia now had
the opportunity to make Kodori a real success.


7. (C) On Abkhazia, Fried said one asset was that de facto
president Bagapsh did not appear to be a "100 percent"
Russian creature. Bezhuashvili and Kutelia disagreed, noting
that while it was true that Bagapsh came from a more Abkhaz
nationalist background than others in the de facto
administration, given the tremendous Russian leverage in
Abkhazia his actions were in practice no different than his
more pro-Russian colleagues. Kutelia noted that even Beslan
Butba, a prominent Abkhaz businessman and member of the de
facto parliament who (despite living primarily on Moscow) is
personally anti-Russian, told Kutelia earlier this year that
he was forced to break off his contacts with Georgian
officials.

The Politics of Gas
--------------

8. (C) Bezhuashvili said the government was greatly concerned
about a winter gas crisis. While he had doubts that the
Russians would again cut off the gas completely, he predicted
they would insist on a large increase in price. Bezhuashvili
confirmed that the Russians were pressing Azerbaijan not to
sell gas to Georgia. He said the Azeris had asked Georgia
for "more time to assess" after the Russians had told them
they would lose the same amount of gas from Russia that they

TBILISI 00002866 003 OF 003


sell to Georgia. Fried told Bezhuashvili to exercise great
caution if Georgia gets involved in gas talks with Iran.
Bezhuashvili said that in fact he and Energy Minister Gilauri
were likely to travel to Iran October 21 or 22, assuming they
received a positive report from a Georgian technical team
arriving in Iran October 19. He said Georgia had wanted to
send only Gilauri, but the Iranians had insisted on
Bezhuashvili as well, and had urged Georgia to characterize
the visit as broader than only energy issues. Bezhuashvili
told Fried that gas was the only issue Georgia was interested
in discussing, and added that any purchases from Iran would
be conditional on Russian and Azeri sources being unworkable,
and on the Iranian price being reasonable. He said he
recognized that the Iranians could be colluding with Russia,
but explained that circumstances obligated the Georgian
government to explore all alternatives.


9. (U) A/S Fried cleared this message.
TEFFT