Sokhumi, Tskhinvali Snub Planned Neutral Travel Documents
Civil Georgia, Tbilisi / 16 Apr.'11 / 15:12

PM of breakaway Abkhazia, Sergey Shamba, said Tbilisi’s intention to issue neutral travel documents and identification cards for the Abkhaz and South Ossetia residents was Georgia’s “yet another delirious idea.”

“It is yet another populistic step, which will yield no results. No one here will take those passports. We have an agreement with Russia on dual citizenship – [Abkhaz] citizens have both the Russian and Abkhaz passports,” Shamba said in an interview with the Russian newspaper, Vzglyad.

Foreign Ministry of breakaway South Ossetia said in a statement on April 15, that that it was now already “too late” to come up with this initiative and no one in the region was “interested” in it. Tskhinvali said the idea of neutral travel documents was first voiced in late 90s, but at the time it was declined by Tbilisi.

Georgian State Minister for Reintegration, Eka Tkeshelashvili, said on April 14 that Tbilisi expected to make available neutral travel documents for the residents of the breakaway regions by the end of this year.

Tkeshelashvili said that accepting such document would in no way mean obtaining Georgian citizenship; she said the document would not even have the Georgian state symbols. She also said that the Georgian authorities did not expect "large-scale" use of those documents.

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