US Brings New Energy into Georgia's South Ossetia Peace Process

Theresa Freese

Despite a resumption of hostilities in Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia on 20 September, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Matthew Bryza said that the United States is exerting “new energy” into the peace process and hopes to use this “very unfortunate set of circumstances…to re-establish momentum toward a peaceful settlement.”

A series of mortar attacks during the self-declared republic’s capital Tskhinvali during a parade celebrating 15 years of de facto independence from Georgia injured ten persons. Both parties to the South Ossetia conflict deny responsibility for the attack.

The U.S. State Department promptly issued a statement condemning the 20 September mortar attacks and reiterated U.S. support for Georgia's territorial integrity and a negotiated settlement of the South Ossetian conflict by “resolving the region's status within Georgia.”

Both Georgia and Russia issued statements calling for the resumption of peace talks and a peaceful settlement of the conflict; although Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili later protested Russia’s role in South Ossetia as an attempt at “annexation.” Meanwhile, the Ossetians are refusing to re-engage in the peace process.

The attacks came less than a week after Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili appealed through the United Nations General Assembly for the international community to become more actively engaged in unresolved conflicts. “Georgia's democratic and economic development is constrained today due to unresolved conflicts on our territory,” President Saakashvili said at the 60th UN session. Calling Georgia’s breakaway regions “black holes” that “provide shelter” to criminals, human traffickers, drug smugglers, and terrorists, Saakashvili said “these areas endanger international stability.”

Prompted by the Soviet Union’s demise, South Ossetia broke from Georgia along with Abkhazia—Georgia’s second runaway region clinging to Russia—following ethno-territorial conflicts in the early 1990s. Until Saakashvili came to power, these conflicts were deemed “frozen.”

President Saakashvili upset the status quo in the Caucasus by coming to power through a November 2003 Rose Revolution that ousted Eduard Shevardnadze, a former Soviet minister of foreign affairs, and declaring restoration of Georgia’s territorial integrity as his top policy priority.

The Western-oriented president achieved early success when he regained autonomous Ajaria on Georgia’s southern border with Turkey in May 2004. Similar attempts to regain South Ossetia, bordering the Russian Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, brought Georgia to the brink of war that summer. Last week’s shelling signaled the first serious resumption of hostilities.

Pointing out that the U.S. maintains an “old policy” towards the Caucasus, Matthew Bryza said during an interview on Friday that the “new energy” is a result of Georgia’s determination to “move ahead” with conflict resolution.

“The U.S. administration’s policy is to do everything we can to facilitate and negotiate a peaceful settlement to the Abkhazia and South Ossetia conflicts,” said Matthew Bryza, who assumed his position in June. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of State said he is working with his inter-agency colleagues in Georgia as well as in Russia “to try to develop a plan to advance a negotiated settlement and break the stalemate that we’ve seen over the last several years.” 

The new Georgian government is actively seeking NATO-membership and hopes this will pave the road to the European Union, but fears that Russia’s active support for the separatist territories is meant to thwart these aims by preventing conflict resolution.

Officially, Russia claims to respect its neighbor’s territorial integrity. However, Russian officials attended independence day events by crossing the porous border without procuring Georgian visas. Moscow has long subsidized the regions and provided residents with Russian citizenship.

Notably, the U.S. statement addressed Russia’s involvement in the region by urging the Russian Federation “to refrain from support of the unrecognized South Ossetian leadership…[and] to help avoid further provocations on both sides of the South Ossetia conflict as we work together in pursuit of a negotiated settlement.”

President Saakashvili praised this new development by stating, “It is of most importance that after so many years the U.S. Department of State openly urged Russia to stop supporting separatists once and for all.”

Matthew Bryza said that the U.S. is encouraging Russia to use its “influence” over South Ossetia to prevent such events from occurring in the future. “Anything that pulls South Ossetia away from the rest of Georgia runs contrary to our interests and our goals,” Bryza said.

Three “strategic interests” drive U.S. policy in the Caucasus, Bryza said: conflict resolution, security cooperation, and energy interests.  These are “enduring regardless of what Russia’s interests are,” Bryza stressed.

He called Russian foreign policy-making a very “complicated endeavor” and said that a “variety of issues within the Russian foreign policy machine pull Russian policy in different directions and it’s sometimes difficult to see a unified and consistent Russian approach to Georgia.”

Nonetheless, Bryza found that a “more constructive” response has been coming from Russia over “the last couple of weeks.” “When that starts to happen at my level,” he said, “that clears the way at the very highest level for more active engagement. That’s what we’re working toward.” Bryza hopes that his colleagues in Moscow sense that the Georgians and the Americans are “serious about making a real go at a negotiated settlement.”

Bryza noted a difference in opinion regarding conflict resolution. “The way we look at it is different maybe than the way Russia looks at the situation. We don’t see a zero sum game.” The U.S. has “interests in Georgia’s internal transformation,” Bryza explained. “That may make some people in Russia uncomfortable, he added, “but that is our objective and we need to pursue that objective.”

To date, however, the United States does not play a direct role in the South Ossetia peace process. It holds a seat on the so-called UN Group of Friends working on Abkhazia, but the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the OSCE, does not possess a similar forum for South Ossetia.

Georgian officials are eager for U.S. involvement, pointing out that the U.S. was instrumental in securing an historic May 30 agreement on Russia’s final military withdrawal from Georgian territory. They hope that a similar involvement in the South Ossetia peace process might witness similar results.

Reiterating this goal, President Saakashvili announced over the weekend: “It is of key importance that our friends, Americans, are being involved in this process and support a negotiated settlement and a peaceful process.”

Georgia’s National Security Advisor Gela Bezhuashvili travelled to Moscow on Wednesday to launch an attempt to secure the U.S. a seat at the negotiation table. During a phone interview, Bezhuashvili said that he will meet his Russian counterpart, Igor Ivanov, to present a new “action plan” for the peace process with ideas for a “new forum”—a “Group of Friends”—that could bring the U.S. as well as the European Union into the South Ossetia negotiations. “The U.S. expressed readiness to participate in the peace process,” Bezhuashvili added.

Bryza suggested that the U.S. and EU may indeed become more involved in a “more invigorated negotiating forum,” but stressed that it remains to be agreed upon by the parties. In the meantime, he said, “We can do a lot to lay the foundation by supporting the efforts of the Georgian government using it’s ministries to build ties—economic, cultural, political and security ties, law enforcement ties—between South Ossetia and the rest of Georgia.”

Bryza hinged success on “political will” and the extent to which the U.S. administration succeeds in bringing Russia and other Europeans along with the Georgians into the negotiation process. “If we want to be effective we have to make sure we are working with the Russians, pulling in the same direction,” he said. “We have to make sure that Georgia is working with the Russians, explaining what its ideas are, developing a consensus view of where the process needs to move—as well as with the Europeans…because the Europeans have a lot to offer in terms of channeling Russia and Georgia in a positive direction.”

Nonetheless, some regional experts remain skeptical that U.S. involvement will have a positive, if any, real effect.

“I think we just have to be realistic,” said Dr. Fiona Hill, Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at The Brookings Institution who specializes on Russia and Eurasia. Pointing to unresolved conflicts “across the globe” and stressing that there are “no quick solutions,” she said: “It’s very difficult for an outside party to do something—especially if they are not viewed as an honest broker by one side…. In Russia, the perception is that the West is trying wrest Georgia away from Russia’s orbit.” She recommended that Georgia find “other interlocutors,” such as neighboring Turkey.

In a similar vein, Dr. Charles King, Chair of the Faculty at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and author of “The Black Sea: A History,” called peace processes a “kind of sham.” Noting a “structural problem” in negotiations, he said, “Nothing fundamentally moves forward because the sides who are allegedly mediators in this–whether it’s the Russians or the United States—have already taken a position on the basic outcome of the conflict.”

Updated 10/7/05