Russian foreign minister: Everyone comprehends how counterproductive Saakashvili’s statements at UN General Assembly are

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“I think, everyone understands how counterproductive statements are like those made by the Georgian president at the UN General Assembly. Everyone comprehends that in reality the problem can be settled only under conditions of mutual respect and grounding on facts. I heard nothing of it in the statement,” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says answering questions of reporters.

As REGNUM is told at Russian Foreign Ministry Information and Press Department, Sergey Lavrov also said that “the European Union and NATO that quite recently approved Individual Partnership Action Plan for Georgia do comprehend that acting rashly, being carried away by emotions, believing in one’s own impeccability in any circumstances is a way that would not result in stabilization.” “And stabilization is quite necessary for Caucasus and Transcaucasia. The region is quite perspective from the point of view of establishing international transport routes, developing energy sphere. To have ‘hot’ instead of ‘frozen’ conflicts, probably, does not meet long-term interests of those who are willing to see their influence there.”

It is worth mentioning, while speaking at the 61^st session of the UN General Assembly, Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili announced that Russia should play significant role in settling conflicts in Georgia, but its “pseudo-neutral approach makes us claiming for change of the current formats.” Saakashvili also stressed that under Russia’s economic and political pressure agreement adopted before need to be revised and documents should be adopted instead that would encourage the settlement process in practice. “For the time of their presence in the conflict zones over 2,000 civilians were killed, over 8,000 houses destroyed. UN and OSCE observer missions foxed numerous facts of deploying heavy weapons and equipment in the conflict zones. The Russian peacekeepers are unwilling to prevent from such violations,” Saakashvili declared. According to him, in South Ossetia, “18 illegal military exercises were held; Russian peacekeepers often participated in them.” According to Saakashvili, the peace process as well as the format of the mission not only fail to foster conflict settlement, but deteriorate it, and “nobody should be disillusioned that Georgia is incapable of settling the conflicts by other means.”