President Saakashvili said on January 24 he welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey’s statement that Moscow had no intention to recognize breakaway Abkhazia or South Ossetia.

“We have been waiting for this statement for a long time and we welcome it. We think it really demonstrates that Russian policy can become – and we hope so – more constructive. If such statements had been made previously, probably many issues would have been settled much more easily,” Saakashvili said at a news conference in Strasbourg. 

Speaking at a press conference in Moscow on January 23, Lavrov said: “The Russian authorities have never said that after Kosovo we would immediately recognize Abkhazia or South Ossetia.” 

Saakashvili also expressed the hope that Russia would play a constructive role in the settlement of Georgia’s separatist conflicts.

“We do not divide Georgia into ethnic Georgians and ethnic Ossetians or other ethnic groups,” Saakashvili said. “Therefore, we reiterate – it is time to remove all barriers, artificial obstacles. We should not torture the people living in Tskhinvali and South Ossetian villages with artificial mini-Berlin Walls. These people should move freely, these people should become part of Georgian society and the Georgian state, which also belongs to the Ossetians. I think that under conditions of openness other issues will be solved very quickly. And we pin our hopes on a constructive Russian role.”