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Us envoy discuss aid to goergia govt Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/7407161.htmhttp://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/7407161.htm
Posted on Wed, Dec. 03, 2003
U.S. Envoys Discuss Aid to Georgia Govt.
MISHA DZHINDZHIKHASHVILI
Associated Press
TBILISI, Georgia - A high-level U.S. delegation talked to Georgia's interim government Wednesday about its needs in the run-up to presidential elections, while a powerful provincial leader denounced the nation's regime change as a "coup" and said his region would boycott the vote.
Meanwhile, an explosion shook Georgia's state television company in Tbilisi late Wednesday, but no one was injured, Interior Minister Georgy Baramidze announced on Georgian television. No further details were immediately available.
Georgian officials have been warning for days about possible attempts to foment chaos ahead of the Jan. 4 election, and the new interim government has said that the economic situation in the already struggling ex-Soviet republic is dire.
"There is no money to pay pensions, salaries or to procure energy resources for the winter period," Georgia's acting President Nino Burdzhanadze told the nation in a live broadcast on the independent Rustavi-2 television.
U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Lynn Pascoe is in Georgia, heading a delegation made up of representatives of several U.S. government agencies. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is expected to visit later this week, Georgian parliament speaker Gigi Tsereteli said Wednesday.
"We want to better understand the Georgian needs and difficulties at this point," Pascoe told reporters after the first round of talks with Burdzhanadze.
"We want to better understand the Georgian needs and difficulties at this point," Pascoe said after the first round of talks with Burdzhanadze.
The United States has pledged to help Georgia prepare for the Jan. 4 vote.
Burdzhanadze took over after President Eduard Shevardnadze resigned Nov. 23 after facing a tide of opposition protests sparked by the fraud-tinged parliamentary elections earlier in the month.
Both the United States and Russia have jockeyed for influence in Georgia, which sits astride a prospective international pipeline intended to carry oil resources from Azerbaijan to Turkey and Western markets.
Aslan Abashidze, the feisty governor of Georgia's autonomous Black Sea province of Adzharia, on Wednesday denounced the regime change as a "coup" and warned that his province would boycott the vote if the interim government refuses to put it off until June.
"If they don't postpone the elections, we won't take part in them," Abashidze said at a news conference in Moscow. "The elections must be thoroughly prepared unless they want another farce."
Abashidze spoke after a weeklong visit to Moscow, where the leaders of Georgia's two breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia were also holding meetings, sparking speculation that the three may strike a deal that would further erode the Georgian government's authority.
Abashidze said that no such deal had been negotiated, and denied that Adzharia - home to Georgia's biggest seaport and Russia's largest military base in Georgia - would follow the example of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and secede. But he urged Georgia to give broader powers to its provinces and clarify their status before the elections.
The provincial leaders' talks in Moscow strongly annoyed Georgia's government, which demanded that Moscow stop meddling in its home affairs. Georgia got strong support from the United States and European nations at a conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that ended Tuesday in angry argument with Moscow.
Mikhail Saakashvili, the fiery leader who led the protests against Shevardnadze and is widely expected to win the presidential contest, said Wednesday that Tbilisi wants "normal relations with Moscow."
"We need to be in permanent dialogue with it and provide it with security guarantees," he said in remarks broadcast on independent Rustavi-2 television.
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