Abkhazia agrees to German-hosted talks on Georgia conflict (Roundup)

Jul 25, 2008, 18:28 GMT

Moscow/Sokhumi - The autonomous rebel region of Abkhazia Friday agreed to attend expert-level talks in Germany with Georgian representatives on their territorial conflict, Abkhazia's President Sergei Bagapsh was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.

The talks could go ahead at the end of August in Berlin, Bagapsh was quoted as saying. Initially, Abkhazia had refused to attend such talks.

Top US negotiator Matthew Bryza earlier Friday visited Georgia for peace talks with leaders of its Russian-backed separatist region, following a similar visit to the region by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

The two promoted a peace plan to calm tensions rife between Tbilisi and Moscow over the rebel region of Abkhazia, autonomous since a civil war ended in 1994.

But although Bryza voiced support for the German plan, he stressed in meetings Friday that his visit to Georgia, a key US ally in the strategic Caucasus, 'is not directly related to the plan.'

'I support the (peace) plan because I participated in its preparation and because Russia has more or less agreed to it,' Bryza was quoted by news agency Interfax as saying ahead of talks in the Abkhaz capital Sokhumi.

He admitted, 'Here in Abkhazia the plan is not well-loved.'

Georgia's rebel region last week rejected as 'unacceptable' the Steinmeir-headed plan, demanding among other issues that Georgian troops first withdraw from the sensitive Kodori Gorge on the border of Abkhazia.

Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia has enjoyed de facto autonomy since a UN ceasefire in the 1990s that provided for a permanent Russian peacekeeping mission of 2,500 men in the region.

But Moscow's recent moves to strengthen diplomatic ties and increase its peacekeeping mission in the region set off a dangerous row with Tbilisi, who says such steps amount to the creeping annexation of its territory.