Russia and Georgia to meet in Prague once again

Today in Prague, another meeting between the State Secretary, Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin and Georgian Prime Minister's special envoy on Russia Zurab Abashidze will be held.

According to Karasin, the meeting is planned and aimed at gradual establishment of contacts. "There will be no breakthrough. We will discuss practical issues of establishment of normal relations between Russia and Georgia. We will continue this dialogue so that our relations would bring practical benefits for the peoples of our countries," TASS quoted him as saying. 

He specified that the issues of transport interaction will be discussed at the negotiations. "Yes, there are transport issues, we will inform about everything after the meeting," Karasin said.

He also stressed that the positive cooperation is expected. "The mood on our part and on Georgia's part is constructive, so we can expect great results," he added.

In an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza, the head of the Center for Global Studies, Nana Devdariani, stressed that today "Karasin-Abashidze" format is basically a key form of diplomatic cooperation between Russia and Georgia, and Zurab Abashidze "has to replace several state structures" which would work, if Tbilisi didn't break up diplomatic relations with Moscow.

"Considering the fact that there are no diplomatic relations, it is actually the only channel of negotiations, and examining the results that have been achieved in four years, Karasin-Abashidze meetings can be evaluated only positively. Certainly the capabilities of these two diplomats are limited to economic and humanitarian topics, but still they were able to do a lot here. I can hardly remember cases when Zurab Abashidze would raise certain issue and it wouldn't be resolved at the negotiations with Grigory Karasin," she noted.

At the same time she added that Georgia would like more from contacts with Russia. "Of course public expects much more from 'Georgian Dream' (not Karasin-Abashidze format) in a sense that the establishment of Russian-Georgian relations will go much further, and that political issues will be discussed, since they concern us the most," she pointed out.

The head of the Institute of Management Strategy, Petre Mamradze, was even more positive in his assessment of this format. "The results of these meetings exceeded all expectations. Not only skeptical, but also optimistic. Originally, this format is pretty limited, it can only discuss social, economic and cultural issues (while Geneva discussions are for everything else), but a lot of things were done thanks to it. First of all, Russian market opened for Georgian agricultural products - if Georgia's export increased, it was only due to supplies to Russia. Secondly, the tourist flow from Russia to Georgia has increased greatly, mostly because there is a trust factor and other factors now," he recalled.

"Right now it is really very important, when the Russians come to us and see that the attitude towards them is purely friendly. When last year there was a false information about the fact that Georgia joined sanctions against Russia, Karasin and Abashidze explained everything, said that it is not true, that there are no anti-Russian sanctions in Georgia. Disinformation would have serious consequences if it weren't for this format," he said.