TBILISI, DFWatch – ‘Russia and Georgia: looking for a solution’ – this is the title of a new collection of articles on Russia-Georgia problems, published by Russian and Georgian experts.

With the help of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS), and support from the EU and the UNDP project COBERM (Confidence Building Early Response Mechanism).

The collection has eight articles. Contributors from Georgia are Vladimer Papava, Tengiz Pkhaladze, Tornike Sharashenidze, George Tarkhan-Mouravi, Ivlian Haindrava, while the Russian contributions were written by Nikolay Silaev, Ivan Sukhov, Boris Frumkin, Andrei Zagorski and Alexander Skakov.

Legal expert Kakha Gogolashvili has been leading the project. He notes that more experts had been participating in the process to define the list of the problems to work on. He thanks for this all the participating experts; including Carnegie Moscow Center and two Abkhazian experts, which have been participating in the working meetings. The identity of the Abkhazian experts is not revealed, so that they wouldn’t have any problems. Gogolashvili feels sorry that there hadn’t been found any expert in Tskhinvali.

The collection was presented at the GFSIS office in Tbilisi on November 11. Georgian experts and representatives of the diplomatic corps accredited in Georgia attended the meeting.

Both experts and diplomatic corps representatives positively rate the project. According to them, it is attempt at analyzing problems between the two countries by intellectual efforts. They consider it important that intellectual resources be used not from one single country, but that both sides are involved in the process.

“A conflict doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s spread through civil society. […] It is important that problems be identified and dealt with together,” Gogolashvili says.

The following articles are published in the collection: ‘Russian-Georgian relations within the context of European security’, ‘North Caucasus within the context of Georgian-Russian relations’, ‘Development of Georgia-Russia economic relations in the post-Soviet period: past and perspectives’, ’International positioning of Georgian economy: perspectives from Moscow’, ‘Perspectives for solving Georgia-Russia relations’, ‘Modus Vivendi: variations of signing’, ‘Two Ossetia in the context of Georgia-Russia relations’ and ‘Humanitarian issues in Abkhazia and South Ossetia’.

Experts and diplomatic corps representatives hope that a larger part of society will get familiar with these articles and the discussions will be transferred to a larger audience.