GEORGIA: CONSTRUCTIVE EXCHANGE ON THE ENGAGEMENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 TBILISI 002204 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/14/2019 TAGS: PREL PGOV PBTS EAID RS TU GG SUBJECT: GEORGIA: CONSTRUCTIVE EXCHANGE ON THE ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY REF: TBILISI 1989 Classified By: Ambassador John R. Bass for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary. On December 11 Reintegration Minister Yakobashvili led a discussion with international partners of a draft strategy on engagement with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Characterizing it as a "human-centric" engagement (not de-occupation) plan, Yakobashvili called it the government's first such document and said he was out on a limb to propose it. Quad partners and others welcomed the effort, noting several positive elements, such as an explicit reference to the non-use of force, but urged making it more acceptable internationally by removing two sections that focused more on Russia and the past than the regions and the future. The Ambassador suggested including a vision of a fully reformed, democratic and prosperous Georgia to position the strategy in the context of Georgia's aspirations. Yakobashvili explained how domestic politics required some explanation for this progressive document, but agreed to undertake a revision. He also made clear, however, that Georgia perceived a lack of support internationally and would therefore feel exposed if it did not address Russia's ongoing presence while advocating for engagement. If Georgia received a strong signal of support from international partners, it would not feel compelled to dwell on the issue itself. One contentious issue was the government's insistence that all projects be "joint," not "parallel"; the Europeans, whose programs could be jeopardized by such a requirement, pushed back hard on this. More detailed discussions will come in the next six months, when the government will produce an Action Plan and organize a donors' implementation conference. End summary. ¶2. (C) Comment. Yakobashvili seemed to recognize that the draft is flawed and needs revision. It is still not clear, however, how much farther Yakobashvili feels he can push the envelope on divorcing the strategy itself from internal political discussions. If he is correct that the Abkhaz themselves care only about the government's actions, then the Action Plan will be more relevant than this document. Even more important, though, is action; getting started with simpler projects in the near term, even before the Action Plan is complete, might help test the waters. We will encourage the Georgians not to let their quest for a perfect plan down the road get in the way of good activities now. We will also encourage flexibility regarding joint vs. parallel projects, although this is probably more of a European problem; we agree that all programs should have a joint component, and we think we can design U.S. programs to address Georgian concerns. ¶3. (C) Comment, cont'd. Yakobashvili also seemed to understand the importance international partners will play in the implementation of this strategy; he will look to respond to concerns. At the same time, he and his colleagues feel isolated in their efforts to resist Russia's ongoing presence. It is not surprising they seek to push back on the occupation whenever possible -- and especially in a document that they portray as so politically risky. As we encourage the government to be as flexible as possible in enabling engagement -- including by getting the strategy right -- we can help provide additional space to do so by shoring up Qcan help provide additional space to do so by shoring up Georgia's concerns about occupation in the international arena. End comment. CORE ISSUES ¶4. (SBU) In a follow up to an all-day brainstorm session in London (reftel),Reintegration Minister Temuri Yakobashvili hosted an all-day conference for international partners, accompanied by a team of several Georgian government officials, representing his own Reintegration Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Justice Ministry, and the National Security Council. International attendees including all four Quad ambassadors, as well as representatives from London and Berlin; the EU's Special Representative for the South Caucasus and its bilateral ambassador; and lower-level staff members of various missions, including the EUMM and the OSCE (from Vienna). All participants received the draft 10-page text, entitled "State Strategy on Occupied Trritories: Engagement through Cooperation" (emailed to EUR/CARC),several days before the session. ¶5. (C) Yakobashvili began by offering some initial thoughts on the text. He described it as not a de-occupation strategy, but an engagement strategy meant to be TBILISI 00002204 002 OF 004 "human-centric." He explained that not only had the government never had such a clearly defined policy on the regions, but it was leaning pretty far forward -- and exposing itself to criticism -- in proposing such an open-arms policy toward the regions. He noted for example several elements that represented progressive ideas for the government: the non-use of force pledge, the idea to establish a railway between Abkhazia and the rest of Georgia, and the proposal to establish links with the "muhajirs" (ethnic Abkhaz who were driven out in tsarist times and now reside in communities in Turkey). According to Yakobashvili, even using such terms as "secessionist-minded" and "autochthonous population" represents a concession on the government's part -- one that opens it up to criticism from more hard-line domestic opponents. He said an (unnamed) opposition politician, who had seen a leaked copy of the draft, had already called him "that traitor Yakobashvili" for being too soft on the regions in the draft. ¶6. (C) Delivering a coordinated position on behalf of the Quad, German Ambassador Flor offered an initial response to the text. Welcoming the new approach to the regions the draft reflected, she also noted that it contained many interesting and positive aspects -- the non-use of force pledge, for example. She also raised questions about the purpose of the document; whether it was designed simply to lay out a strategy for engagement, or to make political points more for a "domestic" (i.e., inside undisputed Georgia) audience. Beyond the regions and the domestic political audience, however, Georgia would need to present and explain its strategy in such international fora as the EU and NATO, so it needed to take that audience into account as well. She said that the first two sections, entitled "Basic Principles" and "Background and Current Status Review," were unnecessarily controversial and overly focused on the past -- and that the Quad partners could not associate themselves with the text in its current form. She suggested that the Georgians revise the first section significantly and drop the second section altogether. Noting the inclusion of several "sensitive" issues, such as property rights and IDP concerns, she advised that, if the government felt it necessary to include them, it do its utmost to avoid unnecessarily inflammatory terms in that discussion. She also suggested that, although the latter half of the draft contained many interesting ideas, it left many details unresolved, and so more work would need to be done to flesh out the way forward. In particular, the government would need to consider how the Law on Occupied Territories would affect, and be affected, by the strategy. ¶7. (C) Several other partners seconded Flor's comments, including EU Special Representative Peter Semneby. British Special Representative for the South Caucasus Sir Brian Fall suggested that different policy objectives required different policy instruments -- so that a strategy on engagement would look different than a policy paper on Georgia's response to Russia's occupation. Ambassador Bass recognized the multiple audiences that the government was attempting to cater to in one and the same document, calling the exercise "three-dimensional chess." He suggested that, in the introduction, it might help to frame the strategy ideas in Qintroduction, it might help to frame the strategy ideas in terms of Georgia's aspirations. Instead of focusing on the past difficulties that have put Georgia in this difficult spot, it would be better to highlight the reformed, democratic and prosperous state that Georgia seeks to become -- a tack that might prove more interesting to the populations of the regions than recriminations about the past. ¶8. (C) Yakobashvili took the comments and criticism graciously and did not dodge the more difficult issues. He admitted that the document was targeted to a large degree at a "domestic" political audience, but pointed out that that audience was at least as important as the people in the regions, because all the people of Georgia would have to support the strategy. He pointed out, for example, that many IDPs from Abkhazia were still bitterly opposed to any cooperation with the de facto authorities, and the government could not simply ignore those attitudes when formulating and explaining what amounts to a completely new approach. He said he would try to be more flexible on language, so as to avoid unnecessarily inflammatory terms. He agreed that it made sense to include a more forward-looking vision of Georgia's reforms and aspirations in the introduction and said he would revise the first two sections. Nevertheless, he insisted that the Abkhaz themselves were more interested in the latter half of the document -- the action-oriented sections -- based on their feedback to Yakobashvili's office. According to Yakobashvili, the Abkhaz "don't care what you TBILISI 00002204 003 OF 004 say," but "care what you do," so the government did not need to worry too much about offending the Abkhaz with its policy stance. Finally, Yakobashvili explained that, within the Georgian political context, "some things are just impossible"; i.e., the Ministry only had so much room to maneuver in terms of laying out a new policy direction. JOINT VS. PARALLEL PROJECTS ¶9. (C) One contentious issue that arose during the discussion but resisted resolution was the government's insistence that all projects in the regions be so-called "joint" projects, i.e., have a component that links directly with a similar project in the rest of Georgia. Many partners run what they call "parallel" projects, which may or may not be designed eventually to link up with analogous programs in the rest of Georgia, but which run independently for at least part of their duration. Yakobashvili took a hard line on this issue, saying that over 17 years, such programs have done serious damage, eroding Georgia's territorial integrity. He mentioned British NGOs as an example of organizations that have helped create a civil society elite (primarily in Abkhazia),but not contributed to the reunification of Georgia. Citing his own experience working at an NGO with such organizations, he said he was ready to be fired rather than cave on this issue. During a conversation at lunch, Deputy Reintegration Minister David Rakviashvili suggested that parallel projects, rather than preparing groups in the regions to re-engage with the rest of Georgia, simply offered those groups a choice between international partners and the rest of Georgia -- and they chose the international partners every time. ¶10. (C) European partners pushed back hard on this point. Fall agreed that joint programs were the ideal goal, but said that you could not always reach that point immediately. He said it remained important for international partners to establish connections with civil society in the regions as a counterbalance to Russia's influence -- even if those connections did not lead to connections with the rest of Georgia in the short term. He agreed that NGOs could be "tiresome," but suggested that letting "all the flowers bloom" -- even those that did not directly pursue the Georgian government's specific objectives -- would provide for the kind of society that would eventually be more open to reconnecting with Georgia. Ambassador Bass suggested that the issue might depend on how "joint" and "parallel" were defined, advising the Georgians not to limit themselves too much on this issue. All participants agreed to explore this question further. NEXT STEPS ¶11. (C) During the second half of the day, the group discussed the way forward with the strategy and some of the specific program ideas included in the draft. Yakobashvili explained that, once the strategy is finalized, the government would begin work on an Action Plan (AP) to lay out a detailed implementation scheme. During the formulation of the AP, the government would focus on many of the details raised by the Quad -- such as possible amendments to the Law on Occupied Territories. Once the AP was complete, the government hoped to scheduled a donors' conference -- or, as one of the participants suggested calling it, an implementation conference -- about six months from now to Qimplementation conference -- about six months from now to organize international partners' contribution to the plan. Yakobashvili even said the Ministry would look to reorganize itself into a form best suited for implementation. Although acknowledging the importance of a comprehensive approach, Ambassador Bass suggested it was also important to get started, with the government prioritizing among many subjects to concentrate on programs that provide practical benefit and could get underway quickly. ¶12. (C) One of the specific elements of the strategy Flor (speaking for the Quad) singled out as positive was a "liaison mechanism" for coordinating activities with the regions, although she suggested that this mechanism be organized in a status-neutral way in order to ensure the regions' cooperation. Flor offered an alternate term, a "status-neutral agreed framework of interaction," for the structure. Yakobashvili welcomed these suggestions and admitted that much of the work of the next several months would be focused on elaborating the details of this mechanism and the parameters within which it could operate. Such sticky details as travel documents, legal documents, and financial arrangements for implementing organizations remained to be resolved. He proposed forming a small number TBILISI 00002204 004 OF 004 of working groups, composed of interested parties, to focus on various details. He also asked for additional expert legal help to work out these issues. French Ambassador Eric Fournier raised the idea that the Geneva discussions could offer a forum for resolving some of these issues; other participants, however, including Yakobashvili and Rakviashvili, suggested that bringing such issues up in Geneva would elevate them unnecessarily. Fall proposed that a reasonable test for whether a question should be considered in Geneva was whether it would be desirable for Russia to be involved in the conversation. ¶13. (C) The Law on Occupied Territories was another element of the overall environment that would need to be considered during the preparation of the AP. Yakobashvili admitted that amendments would likely be necessary, as well as amendments to other existing laws. He said, however, the Ministry wanted to identify and prioritize the key changes and submit them to Parliament as a package, rather than submitting either small numbers of proposed changes in dribs and drabs or a huge list of changes. ¶14. (C) Regarding specific activities, the international partners expressed considerable support for the wide range and creative nature of ideas contained in the draft. Yakobashvili said the list was an open-ended one, and he welcomed additional ideas. He added, rather proudly, he had received express permission directly from President Saakashvili to include the opening of a railroad between Abkhazia and the rest of Georgia, although he admitted that the de facto authorities were more interested in rail connections with Russia at this point. When asked about one area notably lacking from the list -- law enforcement cooperation -- Yakobashvili said he had considered it, but that it was so sensitive that he decided to leave it off for now. Accepting the partners' concerns that including "Property rights" as an area for cooperation might not be very conducive to engagement, Yakobashvili -- explaining that he could not remove the section entirely -- said he would consider moving that section to another part of the document. NEED FOR SUPPORT ¶15. (C) The Georgians acknowledged that a strategy designed to encourage engagement with the regions should probably not focus on the Russian occupation, as the first two sections of the current draft do. With a little prompting, however, they provided an explanation for the somewhat discordant combination: the Georgian government does not feel the international community is pushing back sufficiently against the Russians for their actions in Georgia, and the government must therefore continue to raise the issue itself. Yakobashvili said that Russia has still not paid a price for its behavior, but that Georgia could not handle Russia alone. He solicited ideas on a more appropriate forum to raise the issue of Russia's occupation, such as the UN or the OSCE. During a lunch conversation, MFA International Organizations Director Sergi Kapanadze said that, if the recent UN General Assembly resolution on IDPs in Georgia had contained the phrase "occupied territories," none of the Quad's concerns about the draft would have arisen, because the whole discussion of the occupied territories could have been avoided. Rakviashvili noted the internal political Qavoided. Rakviashvili noted the internal political sensitivity of proposing a softer line on the regions without any concessions on their or the Russians' part. He pointed out that the government was considering proposing amendments to the Law on Occupied Territories, i.e., softening the Parliament's legislated approach to the regions, without having achieved any compromises from the other side. BASS