GEORGIA: ACTION REQUEST ON UN RESOLUTION 62/249

C O N F I D E N T I A L TBILISI 001236 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/07/2019 TAGS: PGOV PREF PHUM GG SUBJECT: GEORGIA: ACTION REQUEST ON UN RESOLUTION 62/249 Classified By: Ambassador John F. Tefft for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (U) This is an action request. Please see paragraph . ¶2. (SBU) Shalva Tsiskarashvili, Deputy Director of the MFA Office of International Organizations, asked poloff about UNGA resolution 62/249, Status of Internally Displaced Persons and Refugees from Abkhazia, Georgia, dated May 29 ¶2008. The United States was one of 14 supporters of the resolution. According to 62/249, the Secretary General should submit a comprehensive report on the implementation of the resolution on the status of IDPs an Refugees from Abkhazia to the General Assembly during the 63rd sesion. This session ends September 14 2009. Tsiskarashvili said the GOG has inquired with UNHCR; approached Johan Verbeke, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative and head of the former UN Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG); and demarched the Human Rights offices in Geneva and New York asking about the status of the report. Tsiskarashvili said none of the entities or individuals they have contacted are aware that work on the report is under way. Tsiskarashvili said that Peter Nicolaus of UNHCR in Tbilisi told him that he has not been instructed to write such a report. Tsiskarashvili said his concern is that if the report is not begun soon, Georgia may not have time to respond before the next General Assembly. ¶3. (SBU) Comment: Resolution 62/249, passed prior to the August 2008 conflict, provides the Georgians with a unique and likely unreplicable opportunity to highlight humanitarian concerns in Abkhazia, as well as the fate of IDPs from the region. If the proscribed report is not completed, Georgia will lose this opportunity to underline humanitarian concerns, as post-conflict, such a resolution would not likely make it out of the General Assembly. ¶4. (U) Action request: Post requests that the Department confirm with the UN the status of its action on UNGA resolution 62/249. TEFFT