During the last few years UN General Assembly has been accepting draft resolution on refugees and IDPs from Abkhazia and South Ossetia, repeating the content of the document every year, Georgia tires to impose on the International Community a one-sided, politicized and biased approach to the refugee problem to back up its illegal territorial claims.
Resolution submitted by Georgia in June 2014 on refugees and IDPs, the content of which does not differ from resolutions accepted earlier by the UN General Assembly, confirms right of all IDPs, refugees and their descendants to return to their “homes on territory of Georgia including Abkhazia and South Ossetia”.
The resolution, hardly obtruded on the International Community, does not say that those refugees appeared as a result of wars triggered by Georgia against South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It also does not mention hundred thousand Ossetians that had to flee Georgia for reasons of ethnic cleansings, found asylum in South Ossetia and Russian Federation and were not able to return to their residences except for very few ones.
The resolution conceals that Governments of South Ossetia and Abkhazia returned tens of thousand Georgian refugees to their places of permanent residence on their own initiative. The resolution submitted by Georgia does not only fail to consider the existing political realities, in particular the fact the South Ossetia and Abkhazia are independent states, it also proves lack of commitment on behalf of Georgia for solving complicated humanitarian problems.
It is obvious that the resolution, imposed by Georgia from year to year, can not improve situation with the refugees from Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia and undermines the Geneva Discussions that is the only venue where representatives of South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Georgia can discuss a wide range of existing problems, including problems of refugees and IDPs.
The key to solution of the refugee problem is not in diplomatic tricks, designed for propagandistic effect of the resolution, but in deviation from confrontations and signing of a legally binding document on non use of force, ultimately signing a peace agreement between Georgia and Republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Politization of the refugee problem is undermining all the work done in the frame of Geneva Discussions. If Georgia prefers to discuss refugee and IDP issues at such a respectful international body as the UN General Assembly, South Ossetia and Abkhazia insist on their right to participate in discussions of this problem at the UN. As long as there are political games around the refugee issue behind Abkhazia and South Ossetia, discussion of this problematics at the Geneva Discussions is pointless.
Geneva, 18 June 2014