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