According to the Abkhazian government, Geneva has outlived its usefulness as a venue for international discussions on conflict resolution in the Caucasus, including the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict. The Abkhazian side would prefer to see Minsk as the new location for negotiations.
This was announced during a working meeting between Abkhazia‘s president Aslan Bzhania and foreign minister Inal Ardzinba, who reported on the ministry’s work done in the past year, 2023.
Bzhania said that during his last visit to Moscow in mid-February 2024, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov inquired about the Abkhazian leadership’s opinion on the possibility of holding negotiations with Georgia in a new location.
“Lavrov said that the Geneva platform has run its course and asked the Abkhazian side if they objected to seeking a more acceptable venue than Geneva. For example, such discussions could take place in Minsk or in the capitals of other states, preferably in the most neutral ones, such as former Soviet Union republics. There’s nothing wrong with this; on the contrary, it could change things for the better,” said Aslan Bzhania.
This idea also appealed to Abkhazia’s Foreign Minister Inal Ardzinba:
“Lately, we’ve been receiving a lot of information from the Russian Foreign Ministry indicating that Geneva cannot provide equal conditions for all participants in the negotiation process. Therefore, this issue is very relevant.”
However, all of this remains at the level of dialogue between the president and the minister for now. There has been no official statement from Abkhazia regarding a rejection of Geneva as the venue for negotiations.
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