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Independently of their ISO membership status, ISO will also potentially issue a standardised country code for each. According to rules of procedure followed by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency based in Geneva, a new ISO 3166-1 code for Abkhazia and/or South Ossetia will only be issued once it appears in the United Nations Terminology Bulletin Country Names or in the UN Statistics Division's list of Country and Region Codes for Statistical Use.[284] To appear in the terminology bulletin, it must either (a) be admitted into the United Nations, (b) join a UN Specialised Agency or (c) become a state party to the Statute of the International Court of Justice.[285] None of these criteria have been met.
On 23 May 2011 Vanuatu recognised Abkhazia's independence and established diplomatic relations and a visa-free travel regime with Abkhazia.[97][98][99][100][101][102][103]
On 19 June 2011, the new interim Prime Minister of Vanuatu [107] However, on 12 July 2011 Foreign Minister Alfred Carlot reconfirmed Vanuatu's recognition of Abkhazia.[108]
On 20 May 2013, Moana Carcasses Kalosil, Vanuatu's PM, confirmed that Vanuatu had withdrawn its recognition of Abkhazia.[2][109] However, the next day the Deputy Foreign Minister of Abkhazia, Irakli Khintba, responded by saying that no decision to cancel diplomatic relations between Abkhazia and Vanuatu had been taken, and that Kalosil's statements were only his personal point of view which was not the result of an official decision by the government.[110][111]
On 12 July 2013 Georgia and Vanuatu signed an agreement on establishing diplomatic and consular relations. The agreement, which was signed at the United Nations headquarters, states: "the Republic of Vanuatu recognises territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognised borders, including its regions - the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali Region/South Ossetia." [112] The Foreign Minister of Abkhazia, Vyacheslav Chirikba, responded by claiming that Vanuatu had not officially withdrawn its recognition of Abkhazia.[113]
Embassy of South Ossetia to Nicaragua was opened on 30 August 2011.[79]
Abkhazia said it would not take part in the "Geneva Talks on Security and Stability in the Caucacus" in June 2010 because of concerns over the objectivity of the co-chairmen who were representatives of the UN, the EU, and OSCE. A spokesman said "Our proposals are being ignored, discussions on the non-renewal of war are being procrastinated, instead secondary questions are being discussed. Thereupon we feel the co-chairmen have no real proposals, and we want to give them time till September to prepare a document, concerning security, and acceptable for all sides. The Geneva discussions are necessary, and it is normal that each party voices its position, but the mediators must be neutral and non-biased. But the mediators fail to conduct discussions in a constructive impartial manner."[62]
In September 2009, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, when asked by journalists why Abkhazia and South Ossetia should be internationally recognised and Kosovo not, said that "the strongest argument is the fact that at the time when Kosovo’s authorities made the UDI, nobody was threatening them or putting them in a position where they had to secede. On the contrary, Belgrade even went so far as to refrain from exerting any military or economic pressure on Pristina."[61]
Some analysts at the time called ignoring Russian objections and the move by the United States and the EU-3 a mistake, with Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute stating that their view of Kosovo being sui generis and setting no precedent as "extraordinarily naïve".[58] It was also suggested at the time that Russia could use the case of Kosovo as pretext for recognising Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the future.[58][59] Other analysts, including the Heritage Foundation, offer that Kosovo is no precedent due to its administration by the United Nations as a protectorate for seven years and was blocked from being recognised by the United Nations due to Russia and China being able to use their veto in the Security Council.[60]
"Now we can talk until we're blue in the face trying to say there is no analogy here, but it doesn't cover up the obvious analogy between Kosovo and what's going on in Georgia where you have breakaway republics similar to what the Serbs face. Now the only difference is of course, we're Americans and they're Russians. And the people trying to break away there were pro-Russian. And either we're for democracy — either we're for those people in Kosovo and in Ossetia and elsewhere — and in, I might say, in Georgia and their right to be separate from Russia in the beginning — to begin with — if we lose that, we've lost the high ground. We're already losing our credibility right now, let's not lose the high ground."[57]
In the United States, in hearings before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher said:[56]
The setting of a precedent was mentioned by many countries, including Argentina,[52] the People's Republic of China, Cuba,[53] Greece and Spain. India stated that Kosovo "can set a very dangerous precedent for similar cases around the world."[54] The then Russian President Vladimir Putin described the recognition by Western powers of Kosovan independence as a "terrible precedent, which will de facto blow apart the whole system of international relations, developed not over decades, but over centuries."[55] He then went on to say, "they have not thought through the results of what they are doing. At the end of the day it is a two-ended stick and the second end will come back and hit them in the face."[55]
In an emergency session of the UN Security Council, Serbian President Boris Tadić asked the Council, "Are we all aware of the precedent that is being set and are we aware of the catastrophic consequences that it may lead to?" The permanent representatives of the United States, United Kingdom and France presented their opinion that the Kosovo case is sui generis in nature and could not be perceived as a precedent.[51]
The Assembly of Kosovo, under temporary administration of the United Nations (UNMIK) since 1999, unilaterally declared independence as the "Republic of Kosovo" on 17 February 2008.[49] The Republic of Kosovo was instantly recognised by the United States and the EU-3 and now has been recognised by 108 United Nations member states.[50]
The OSCE,[47] and the United States[48] immediately voiced displeasure with Russia's decision.
In January 2010, Georgia adopted a strategy regarding the reintegration of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The strategy is called Involvement through Cooperation and it was presented to the international organisations as well as to Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The document says Georgia views peaceful methods as the only way for conflict solution and that there won’t be a war with these regions. It envisions engagement of people of these two regions through education as well as social, economic and business projects, instead of isolation.[44][45]
Georgia criticised Nauru following the small island state's recognition of Abkhazia. Minister of Reintegration Temur Yakobashvili stated "The recognition of Abkhazia's independence by Nauru is more like a comedy ... it changes nothing on the international arena".[43]
[42] On 28 August, the
[35]
The question of the re-establishment of the territorial integrity of Georgia and the protection of its freedom — this is not an internal Georgian problem, or a question of Georgia and Russia. This is now a question of Russia and the rest of the civilised world. Georgia's future, is not only the future of Georgia, this is the future of the whole civilised world...
This is inconceivable lawlessness and insolence ... Russia has done unthinkable damage to its place in the international community.
This is the first attempt on European territory ... since Hitler's regime and Stalin's Soviet Union where a large state is trying unilaterally, with the use of force, to completely crush a neighbouring country and openly annex its territory.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili considered Russia's move as an attempt to alter the borders of Europe by force. Below are some excerpts from his statement:[34]
[33] The Russian government also welcomed Nicaragua's recognition of the two states, and called on other countries to "recognise reality" and follow Nicaragua's example.
In the UN Security Council, the territorial integrity. In response, Vitaly Churkin, the Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN, attacked the U.S. claim to moral high ground by recalling its invasion of Iraq in 2003.[29][30] Others accused the United States of hypocrisy, citing its support of the violation of Serbian territorial integrity when it recognised the independence of Kosovo in 2008.[31]
The Russian representative to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin stated that Russia's recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is "irreversible" but called upon "NATO countries to withdraw and review their decision concerning Kosovo's independence" and subsequently "act on the premise that this is the new political reality."[26][27] He warned, moreover, that any NATO attack on Russia-supported regions would "mean a declaration of war on Russia."[28]
[25][24] Russian
President Medvedev stated that "Western countries rushed to recognise Kosovo's illegal declaration of independence from Serbia. We argued consistently that it would be impossible, after that, to tell the Abkhazians and Ossetians (and dozens of other groups around the world) that what was good for the Kosovo Albanians was not good for them. In international relations, you cannot have one rule for some and another rule for others."[23]
On 26 August 2008, President Medvedev signed decrees recognising the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as sovereign states (see images, right),[19][20] and made the following statement:
After hearing the aforementioned appeals from both the Abkhazian and South Ossetian leadership, on 25 August 2008, the Federation Council and State Duma passed motions calling upon President Dmitry Medvedev to recognise the independence of both states and establish diplomatic relations.[17][18]
The [17]
In April 2008, the [13][14]
Kosovo's declaration of independence on 17 February 2008 and its divided international acceptance prompted speculation that there could be implications for the frozen South Caucasus situation.[12]
South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia during the Constitution was adopted on 26 November 1994.[10][11]
Georgia and the majority of countries of the world do not recognise them as independent.[5] Georgia officially considers them as sovereign territory of the Georgian state under Russian military occupation.[6]
Following the 6 and 5 UN member states respectively, though Vanuatu subsequently withdrew its recognition of Abkhazia in 2013 as did Tuvalu of both in 2014.[2][3][4] The two regions recognise each other, and also have some recognition from other non-UN member states.
[1]
Hong Kong, Beijing, Macau, Shanghai, Taiwan
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Moscow