Breakaway Abkhazia said that signing of the Association Agreement by Tbilisi with the EU may prompt Sokhumi’s “additional efforts to strengthen and deepen its strategic partnership” with Russia.

Foreign ministry of the breakaway region said in a statement on June 30 that Abkhazia “has nothing to do with Georgian-European agenda.” 

“It is quite obvious that signing of the Association Agreement with the EU does not provide to Georgia an immediate perspective for membership in this union, but at the same time, it distances Georgia from cooperation with neighboring states, first of all, with the Russian Federation and Republic of Abkhazia,” it said.

“Although deepening of partnership between Tbilisi and Brussels will not have a substantial and immediate impact on the economic and political security of Abkhazia, strengthening of geopolitical presence of the West in South Caucasus and strategic location of Abkhazia as of Russia’s ally on the border of Western influence in the region may require additional efforts from Abkhazia to strengthen and deepen its strategic partnership with the Russian Federation,” the breakaway region’s foreign ministry said.

In his speech at the signing ceremony of the Association Agreement in Brussels on June 27, Georgia’s PM Irakli Garibashvili addressed, as he put it, “my brothers and sisters – Abkhazians and South Ossetians” and said: “My dears, we are all children of one country… You have the unique opportunity to enjoy benefits provided by the association with Europe.”