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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 GENEVA 000592 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/16/2019 
TAGS: GG PGOV PHUM PREF PREL RS
SUBJECT: GEORGIA TALKS ROUND 6: MORE CIVIL; MINOR PROGRESS; 
SOUTH OSSETIANS STILL MAJOR OBSTACLE 
 
REF: A. A) GENEVA 409 
     ¶B. B) GENEVA 494 
 
Classified By: Peter Mulrean, RMA Counselor, Reasons 1.4 b and d. 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary and Comment: The tone in the sixth round of 
the Geneva Talks on Georgia was a distinct improvement over 
round five (reftels), with all participants (except the South 
Ossetians) being civil and many being constructive.  The 
South Ossetians were the clear exception, sticking to 
unacceptable demands and insulting Georgia (as well as the 
U.S.).  The Russians were selectively constructive, adopting 
a strategy of appearing conciliatory without really ceding 
ground.  The Abkhaz were genuinely constructive throughout, 
as were the Georgians, who made consistent efforts to be 
respectful and accommodating to other speakers. In the end, 
both Working Groups had something to show for the session. 
In Working Group 1 (security), the Abkhaz de facto 
representatives agreed to an initial meeting of the Joint 
Incident and Response Mechanism for Abkhazia on July 14 in 
the sensitive Abkhaz town of Gali, (home to a large ethnic 
Georgian community).  Working Group 2 (refugees and IDPs) 
announced agreement - very reluctant on South Ossetia,s part 
- to begin a joint assessment of water rehabilitation needs. 
There was considerable discussion of non-use of force (NUF) 
agreements, with the South Ossetians tabling a direct NUF 
agreement with Georgia and Georgia countering with a proposal 
for a new bilateral NUF with Russia.  In the end, the 
co-chairs issued an upbeat press release about the overall 
session, noting the constructive tone, areas of agreement and 
plans to hold round seven on September 17.  In adopting its 
generally more constructive approach, the Russian delegation 
appeared to want to avoid both the isolation it felt in the 
Security Council on the UNOMIG resolution and any blame for 
further undermining international community engagement on 
Georgia.  End Summary and Comment. 
 
-------------------------- 
Working Group 1 - Security 
-------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU)  All sides, including the South Ossetians, agreed 
that the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanisms (IPRMs) 
are useful and important and should continue to function. 
The Abkhaz de facto rep expressed a readiness for the IPRM in 
Abkhazia to begin operations in Gali, a sensitive town in 
southern Abkhazia that is home to Abkhazia,s Georgian 
minority, and to convene the first meeting on July 14.  The 
Abkhaz rep also confirmed a willingness, despite the loss of 
UNOMIG, to allow both the EUMM and UN to participate in the 
IPRM, thereby clearing the way for the IPRM to emerge as a 
vehicle to secure the UN,s return to Abkhazia, without a 
UNSC mandate. 
 
¶3. (SBU) In contrast, South Ossetian de facto "Foreign 
Minister" Chochiyev set conditions for convening the IPRM to 
deal with South Ossetia: chairmanship should include Georgia 
and South Ossetia (to secure implicit recognition of South 
Ossetia,s independence); the fate of three South Ossetians 
who disappeared in October 2008 must be clarified; and 
Georgia must provide a written guarantee that it will not use 
force against South Ossetia. (Comment: this was a new 
condition. End comment.)  On the chairmanship, South Ossetia 
suggested it rotate between Georgia and South Ossetia. 
Georgia rejected this, calling for continuation of the 
current arrangement of EUMM and OSCE jointly facilitating 
(not chairing) the sessions.  South Ossetia rejected this. 
On the disappearances, Georgia repeated an offer to allow 
South Ossetians to visit sites in Georgian-controlled 
territory to investigate, with the proviso that Georgia be 
allowed to do the same in South Ossetia. South Ossetia 
rejected this proposal.  Georgia expressed a willingness to 
hold the next JIPRMs for South Ossetia in Ergneti and Dvani 
(a concession) and even Russia intervened and tried to walk 
South Ossetia back a bit from its conditions, but to no 
avail.  In a later discussion of the press release with 
co-chairs, South Ossetia insisted that there was no agreement 
on when the South Ossetian IPRM might meet again.  South 
Ossetian representatives also refuse to allow the IPRM to 
convene on South Ossetian territory. 
 
¶4. (SBU) There was much discussion about non-use of force 
(NUF) agreements.  South Ossetia tabled a draft text for 
bilateral NUF agreements between Georgia on the one side and 
South Ossetia and Abkhazia on the other, which would secure 
implicit recognition of the independence of both separatist 
regions.  Russia supported this, having made a similar 
proposal during round five of the Geneva talks.  Georgia 
 
GENEVA 00000592  002 OF 003 
 
 
countered that it had already made a binding commitment to 
the NUF in the September 12 ceasefire agreement and quoted a 
Russian statement acknowledging that Georgia had made such a 
commitment.  Georgia pointed out that Russian President 
Medvedev had included the "presidents" of Abkhazia and south 
Ossetia as signatories at the September 12 signing ceremony. 
While Georgia did not recognize them as included in the 
agreement, it appeared that Russia did and should therefore 
consider them covered by the NUF element of the September 12 
agreement.  Finally, Georgia expressed a willingness to make 
another written commitment to Russia on NUF, if that would 
reassure all sides, and distributed a draft text. 
 
¶5. (SBU) EUR DAS Bryza expressed support for NUF agreements 
in general, but agreed that Georgian had already made such a 
commitment in the September 12 agreement.  He stressed that 
the US would hold Georgia to that commitment.  When South 
Ossetia responded that Georgian assurances were worthless, 
since there had been an NUF agreement in force before the 
conflict last year, Bryza noted that it had been South 
Ossetia and Russia who had refused to increase transparency 
in the conflict zone in the years leading up to last summer, 
when the U.S. and our Euro-Atlantic partners repeatedly 
pressed for more OSCE military observers.  He stressed that 
Georgia had legitimate security concerns, citing the ongoing 
large-scale Kavkaz-2009 Russian exercise and aggressive 
Russian military deployments in Abkhazia and South Ossetia 
(including artillery at Akhalgori within firing range of 
Tbilisi).  This would seem to support the need for a 
reaffirmation of the Russia-Georgia NUF agreement.  Russia 
responded that Kavkaz-2009 was indeed large, as it was 
necessary to make a show of force as a deterrent to any 
further Georgian aggression.  In the end, there was general 
agreement that the NUG topic deserved further attention in 
future rounds. 
 
----------------------------------- 
Working Group 2 - Refugees and IDPs 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶6.  (SBU) The co-chairs of Working Group 2 had planned to 
focus discussions on the five concept papers on 
displacement-related themes (e.g. housing, legal status, 
water) distributed by the co-chairs following round 5, hoping 
to review only the practical recommendations to avoid 
polemics.  Instead, the South Ossetians presented a 
three-page paper focusing exclusively on "unacceptable" 
language (references to the status of territory, the use of 
Georgian geographic names, etc.) used throughout the concept 
papers. South Ossetia concluded that the papers were 
otherwise not worthy of comment.  The Russian rep was more 
circuitous in his undermining of the concept papers.  He 
began by saying that one could not delve into the details of 
practical problems on the ground without first addressing the 
primordial issues of security and trust and called for a 
"comprehensive approach" to humanitarian issues.  He went on, 
however, to present a lengthy Russian alternative paper (text 
only in Russian) on displacement-related issues that, at 
least according to his oral presentation, had considerable 
overlap with the issues in the co-chairs, concept papers. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Given this overlap, the co-chairs attempted to steer 
the discussion back to the recommendations from the concept 
papers.  The Russians and South Ossetians consistently 
countered that the concept papers were an unacceptable basis 
for discussion, with the Russians continuing to push for a 
discussion of fundamental security issues and the South 
Ossetians raising the case of the three missing South 
Ossetians (para 3). (Comment: While unhelpful, the 
interventions by the Russians and South Ossetians remained 
civil in tone.  End comment.)  The Chairs and the U.S. 
countered that those were matters for Working Group 1 and 
that the remit of Working Group 2 was to address practical 
humanitarian issues in an un-politicized way. 
 
¶8. (SBU) With the clock ticking down, the co-chairs moved 
quickly through the topics discussed in concept papers, 
without reference to specific recommendations.  The OSCE rep 
briefed on progress made in on water issues, since Georgia, 
South Ossetia and Abkhazia had named technical experts for 
discussions since round 5.  The OSCE called for agreement to 
move forward with a needs assessment for the rehabilitation 
of both drinking and agricultural water infrastructure, which 
will for the baseline for expert-level discussions.  To 
proceed, all parties must send a letter to the OSCE Chair 
(Greece) stating their support for the needs assessment. 
South Ossetia initially balked at sending such a letter, but 
after much prodding gave in.  This, in the end, was the only 
 
GENEVA 00000592  003 OF 003 
 
 
deliverable for Working Group 2.  The co-chairs promised to 
take a look at the new Russian issues paper and see what they 
could salvage from the concept papers.  They will circulate 
some form of new issues paper in the coming weeks. 
 
------- 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶9. (C) While Geneva VI lacked dramatic breakthroughs, the 
agreement of de-facto Abkhaz authorities to convene the IPRM 
on Abkhaz territory (and particularly, in Gali, where ethnic 
Georgians complain of human rights abuses), marked an 
important step forward.  This step clears the way for an 
informal agreement reached by UNSYG Special Rep Verbeke, 
Russian Deputy Minister Karasin, Abkhaz de-facto authorities, 
and DAS Bryza, to use the IPRM as a platform allowing the UN 
to return to Abkhazia in a quiet, status-neutral way.   The 
general tone of the discussions was improved compared to the 
vitriol and theatrics of round five; except for early salvos 
by Russia and South Ossetia in WG1 questioning the continued 
utility of the Geneva talks - easily beaten back by the US 
and others - it appeared that all parties are willing to 
stick with the forum for now.   EU Special Rep Morel and UN 
Special Rep Verbeke believed the non-confrontational, more 
constructive approach of both Russian and Abkhaz participants 
reflected their surprise at being isolated by Msocow,s 
decision to veto UNOMIG,s technical rollover in the UNSC. 
The Russian delegation in Geneva appeared to want to avoid a 
repeat performance and/or being perceived as further 
undermining international community engagement on Georgia. 
GRIFFITHS