A/S FRIED'S MEETING WITH GEORGIAN FM BEZHUASHVILI

S E C R E T STATE 164180

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/05/2017
TAGS: KCFE PGOV PHUM PREL GG
SUBJECT: A/S FRIED'S MEETING WITH GEORGIAN FM BEZHUASHVILI
ON NOVEMBER 29 AT THE OSCE MINISTERIAL IN MADRID

Classified By: Acting A/S Kurt Volker for Reasons 1.4 (B) AND (D)


1. (S) Summary: A/S Fried urged Georgia not to restrict its
democratic space and to re-establish unrestricted freedom of
the media. Bezhuashvili responded that Prime Minister
Gurgenidze was involved in intensive negotiations with News
Corp to re-open the Imedi TV station as soon as possible. On
CFE and Russia,s remaining Istanbul commitment with respect
to the Gudauta military base, Bezhuashvili indicated Georgia
could not agree to a compromise that would legitimize a
Russian peacekeeping presence in Abkhazia, but stood by the
position that Georgia would ratify the Adapted CFE Treaty on
the basis of documentary transfer of Gudauta from Russia to
Georgia, although this would be politically difficult. After
the Georgian elections the Georgian side would work with the
U.S. further "to try to salvage the A/CFE treaty." On South
Ossetia, Bezhuashvili indicated Ossetian opposition to the
Tbilisi-backed Sanakoyev administration was coordinated with
Russia. End summary.


2. (U) U.S. participants included A/S Daniel Fried,
Congressman Alcee Hastings (D-FL),DAS Matthew Bryza, EUR/RPM
Jennifer Laurendeau, EUR/CARC Mike Carpenter (notetaker).
Georgian participants included FM Gela Bezhuashvili,
Permanent Representative to the OSCE Ambassador Viktor
Dolidze, and an MOD representative.


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Democracy in Georgia
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3. (SBU) A/S Fried noted Georgia had recently been through a
difficult period and the U.S. did not want to see it
backslide on its transition to democracy. In its relations
with the West, Georgia would have to behave like a democracy
if it wanted to be treated like one. The USG has a strong
interest in seeing Georgia get back on the reform trajectory
because of its strategic interest in Georgia,s democratic
future. Bezhuashvili noted that Georgia wanted free and fair
elections on January 5 and would ask for election monitors
from as many countries and organizations as possible. He
said there were 22 announced presidential candidates who now
needed to collect 50,000 signatures by December 5 to qualify
for the ballot. (Note: As of December 3, there were 19
eligible candidates running.)


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CFE
---


4. (S) A/S Fried opened the CFE discussion by thanking
Bezuashvili for his flexibility on a Gudauta solution. This
had been critical in enabling Fried to go back to the
Russians with a serious proposal, and Georgia,s flexibility
had been welcomed by NATO Allies. If the U.S. effort to
resolve differences over CFE failed, Fried did not want it to
be because of Georgia and Moldova. Russia should get the
full blame for insisting on reopening key elements of the
Treaty.


5. (C) Fried recounted his discussion November 26 with
Russian DFM Kislyak on CFE: Kislyak had nothing positive to
say about the U.S. package proposal, other than to welcome
its delivery. Kislyak complained about the reference to
fulfillment of remaining commitments on Moldova which appears
in the draft Georgian statement suggested by the U.S., and
asserted that the current U.S. package was a step backward
from what we had offered at the 2 plus 2 meeting because we
had withdrawn the idea that Georgia would transfer some
elements of Gudauta to Russia for its use.


6. (C) Bezhuashvili stood by his previous commitment to
Fried that Georgia would ratify adapted CFE on the basis of
documentary transfer of the Gudauta base from Russia to
Georgia, but only just. He indicated that Georgia did not
like the U.S. idea for three statements because the U.S.
statement appeared to acknowledge the Russian presence.
Discussion of the statements continued when Fried was briefly
called away from the meeting. EUR/RPM Deputy Director
Jennifer Laurendeau reminded Bezhuashvili that the idea
behind the U.S. statement was to gain for Georgia a degree of
transparency regarding Russian forces in at Gudauta that
would otherwise be unobtainable. We had understood that
Georgia was concerned about how Russia would use the base;
transparency was the best (and likely only) way to address
that concern in current conditions. The U.S. was not
suggesting Georgia directly acknowledge the Russian presence
at Gudauta; the U.S. recognized that as a Georgian redline;
the U.S. statement would be the vehicle for putting the
transparency in place. She noted that Kislyak had reiterated
Russia,s proposal for transparency via UNOMIG visits; the
U.S. had refused that as insufficient. A Georgian MOD
representative said sharply that even setting aside the
statements, Georgia did not like the modalities the U.S. had
proposed for the transparency visits, because by establishing
limits on the Russian presence, the modalities admitted its
existence. Laurendeau acknowledged that indeed Georgia had a
choice to make. It could ratify Adapted CFE with no more
transparency regarding the facility than it had today, or it
could push for more.


7. (C) Upon A/S Fried,s return to the meeting, he
reinforced the message that Georgia had to make a choice on
Gudauta. Fried said that in his conversations on with the
Georgian President, Saakashvili had been keen on gaining
limits and information on Russian activities at the facility.
The U.S. ideas on transparency were intended to try to
obtain some of what the President sought. Georgia should
think hard before giving up this opportunity. Bezhuashvili
acknowledged Fried,s point, but repeated the concern that
the draft U.S. statement, and the transparency modalities we
had suggested, appeared to acknowledge the Russian presence.
He believed the way forward was to decouple the issue of the
Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia from CFE; this was why
Georgia was willing to go ahead with ratification. He said
that prior to the Georgian elections it would be next to
impossible to move forward on compromises on Gudauta that
might appear to sanction a Russian peacekeeping presence in
Abkhazia. He noted Georgia was ready to cooperate and
strengthen the U.S. negotiating position because it too
wanted to keep the CFE regime alive through eventual
ratification of the A/CFE treaty, but that discussion of
possible compromises would have to wait until after January

5. Bezhuashvili claimed it was only a matter of time before
Georgia invoked the 1993 Sochi Agreement to tell the Russian
peacekeepers in Abkhazia to leave.


--------------
Putting Imedi TV Back on the Air
--------------


8. (SBU) Helsinki Commission Chairman and U.S. Congressman
Alcee Hastings (D-FL) told Bezhuashvili he stood ready to
organize an OSCE Parliamentary Assembly monitoring team for
the January elections. Hastings cautioned, however, that
monitoring would get off to a very bad start if Imedi TV were
not back on the air when the monitors arrived. Hastings also
noted this issue was particularly important for Georgia,s
friends in the U.S. Congress. Bezhuashvili replied that
Imedi will be reopened; the only question is when.
Bezhuashvili noted PM Gurgenidze was meeting with News Corp
and Imedi management every day on this issue.


9. (C) DAS Bryza told Bezhuashvili he was also in regular
contact with News Corp Vice President Martin Pompadour, and
was aware some people within News Corp management were ready
to abandon the negotiations because they felt the Georgian
side was being unreasonable. Bryza warned Bezhuashvili that
Georgia needed to decouple the issue of business tycoon Badri
Patarkatsishvili,s ownership and control of Imedi from the
issue of re-opening the TV station. A/S Fried underscored
this point, telling Bezhuashvili that the Imedi issue needed
to be resolved as a matter of national security and
rhetorically asked whether Georgia could afford to wage a
two-front war. Bezhuashvili agreed on the importance of
re-opening Imedi and said he wanted to invite media monitors
to Georgia in advance of the elections to certify that all
candidates received equal access to the electronic media
during the campaign. He opined that in the longer term there
was a need for developing media self-regulatory mechanisms.


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South Ossetia
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10. (C) DAS Bryza told Bezhuashvili he had made strong
statements in support of the demilitarization of South
Ossetia during the discussions of the draft OSCE ministerial
statement on Georgia. Bryza noted the question of
establishing a checkpoint at Didi Gupta (key transit point
for illegal weapons and armed personnel) was a decision for
the OSCE to make, and not the JCC (a negotiating framework
that includes North and South Ossetian, Russian, and Georgian
representatives). Thus, the South Ossetians did not have a
veto over the establishment of this checkpoint. Bryza also
noted the most serious bone of contention during the
discussions of Georgia concerned a reference in the draft
ministerial statement to taking account of the opinions of
"all communities within South Ossetia," which the Russians
categorically opposed on the grounds that it obliquely
referred to the Tbilisi-backed Sanakoyev administration in
Kurta. Bryza told Bezhuashvili the U.S. had publicly
challenged this position by noting there was no reason why
the Moscow-backed Kokoity regime should be treated as any
more legitimate than the Sanakoyev administration.
Bezhuashvili responded that the South Ossetians tended to
have neuralgic reactions to any mention of Sanakoyev.


11. (C) As proof of Russian influence over the South
Ossetian authorities and their negotiating positions,
Bezhuashvili handed around a document from the Russian MFA to
the South Ossetian de facto foreign minister with detailed
instructions on how to manage various issues. Bezhuashvili
mentioned he would complain directly to Russian FM Lavrov
about this interference by Russia in the internal affairs of
Georgia.
RICE