Peter Semneby, the EU special representative for the South Caucasus, this week traveled to Georgia for talks on the breakaway region of Abkhazia. The territory has been in the spotlight in recent weeks, as Moscow has built up its troop presence and sought to formalize its ties with the region’s de facto leadership, a move Tbilisi says violates its territorial integrity. Semneby spoke to David Kakabadze, head of RFE/RL’s Georgian Service, during a stop in Prague following the visit.

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/pp051508a.shtml

Could Abkhazia spark a world war?

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With or without formal NATO membership, said Anne Applebaum in Slate, “the West will have to come up with a major response” if Russia invades Georgia. Georgia is “an emerging democracy” with troops in Iraq, and it has “many implicit assurances of security” from the U.S. and NATO. This is worrisome. World War I had a similarly obscure start, and trouble in Abkhazia could “become the starting point of a larger war.”

It certainly could, said Alexander Golts in The Moscow Times, but not because Russia or Georgia actually wants “this conflict to escalate toward a military conflict.” Both sides have political and strategic reasons to provoke the other, but they are playing a dangerous game of brinksmanship. The two sides’ “aggressive” posturing could sharply escalate out of control, like at the start of World War I, and that could have “tragic consequences for the entire world.”

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