Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Georgia

Georgia Toughens Stance On Russia's WTO Bid

Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli (file photo) (AFP)

26 November 2005 -- Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli has said that Tbilisi will set additional conditions prior to giving its consent to Russia's joining the World Trade Organization (WTO).

TEXT SIZE - +

November 26, 2005

Georgian media today quoted Noghaideli as saying Tbilisi will demand that it be allowed to deploy customs officers near the Rokki tunnel that links its separatist republic of South Ossetia to Russia.

Georgia will also demand that it be granted the right to control the transit of goods across the border that separates its second breakaway republic -- Abkhazia -- from Russia's Krasnodar Krai.

Georgia's Economics Minister Irakli Chogovadze issued a similar warning earlier this week.

Georgia has been a WTO member since 2000. Russia hopes to join some time next year.

Any decision to accept new members into the organization must be supported by a two-thirds majority of WTO members.

(prime news.ge/Novosti Gruziya)

President Serzh Sarkisian has promised fair elections

Prospect Of Vote-Rigging Overshadows Upcoming Armenian Parliamentary Election

The Armenian parliamentary elections due in May will not simply be a struggle between rival political parties with diverging priorities and platforms. More

Alla Dzhioyeva attends a protest by her supporters in Tskhinvali on January 28.

South Ossetian Opposition Leader Hospitalized After Raid

Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate whose victory in a runoff ballot in November for de facto president of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia was swiftly annulled by the republic's Supreme Court, was taken to a hospital after a raid by some 200 masked security personnel on her headquarters in Tskhinvali. More

Former KGB head Leonid Tibilov is a presidential hopeful.

Repeat South Ossetian Election Campaign Gathers Momentum

The run-up to the repeat election on March 24 for a new de facto president of Georgia's breakaway Republic of South Ossetia bears an uncanny resemblance to last November's election campaign. More