Abkhaz

Perceptions of the Georgian- Abkhaz conflict before August 2008.

A black ribbon was tied to the Abkhaz flag flying over the province's embassy in Moscow on Sunday, Reuters reported.

Since August 2008, when the frozen conflict in Abkhaz and South Ossetian regions erupted into an open military conflict between Russia and Georgia, the Southern Caucasus country has been struggling to regain stability, both internally and on the foreign stage.

Travelling, courtesy of the British Council, to Tbilisi the following year to spend the academic year 1975-76 learning Georgian and gaining a familiarity with Abkhaz, Avar and Chechen (plus Mingrelian and Svan), I realised just how precarious was the future for several of the other indigenous languages of the Caucasus, which had by then become my area of specialisation.

The most violent clashes took place in Abkhazia, situated between the Black Sea and the Great Caucasus mountains, where the separatists managed to secure control over their entire territory by 1993, even though the ethnic Abkhaz formed only 17 per cent of the population in their own autonomous republic.

Both plants have been affected by the Abkhaz conflict.

Relations between the minority Abkhaz and the Georgians--tense for decades--erupted in 1992 in the aftermath of the breakup of the USSR when local Abkhaz authorities attempted to separate from the newly independent Georgia.

The High Commissioner noted that he will continue to work in the Abkhaz and Tskhinvali regions to monitor human rights.

Concern about the way things are going now has spread from the Abkhazian leadership to include Abkhaz figures doing business in Turkey, as well as Turkish citizens living in Abkhazia.

The government of Abkhaz Autonomous Republic, acting in Tbilisi, stated about its readiness to assist residents of

In the rocket-scarred suburb known as the "New Region" of the Abkhaz capital, it's hard to ignore the reminders of the war fought to break away from the former Soviet republic of Georgia in the early 1990s.

Law enforcement officials from all the parties near the Abkhaz and Ossetian 'border' have met on four occasions to discuss security incidents and a hotline has been put in place.

Moreover, it granted Russian citizenship to Abkhaz and South Ossetian residents, and then justified its recent invasion of Georgia on the grounds that it had an obligation to protect Russian citizens.

This will be accomplished through: 1) mobilizing Georgian and Abkhaz academic and civil society around the common interest of preservation and revitalization of Abkhaz language; 2) connecting young people, potential leaders from Abkhazia and Georgia, to respect and advocate universal human values, encouraging them to foster mutual respect, tolerance and peaceful cohabitation; and 3) facilitating the meaningful dialogue on issues of common interest between diverse groups of society, including educational professionals, academics and young scholars and fostering the people-to-people cooperation.

The Georgian, Abkhaz and Ossetian societies are to undertake commitments for security of the region and future