Council of Europe Congress President condemns so-called “elections” held in occupied Abkhazia

Verbeek said the Congress had “always shown its unrelenting commitment” to the territorial integrity of member states within their internationally recognised borders, noting the principle was “all the more important” in the context of the ongoing Russian military aggression against Ukraine. Photo: CoE.

Agenda.ge, 16 Mar 2022 - 15:02, Tbilisi,Georgia

The de facto authorities of Abkhazia have “once again” undermined the principle of the territorial integrity of Georgia, forcing this region further into isolation to the detriment of the local population, Leendert Verbeek, the President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe (CoE) said in response to the so-called “parliamentary elections” held in Georgia’s Russian-occupied Abkhazia region on Saturday.

Verbeek said the Congress had “always shown its unrelenting commitment” to the territorial integrity of member states within their internationally recognised borders, noting the principle was “all the more important” in the context of the ongoing Russian military aggression against Ukraine.

The CoE official strongly condemned actions undermining the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia as a member state, adding illegal recognitions of independence of territories of member states came “only one step” before further aggression and war, a principle he said had already been known before the Russian invasion in Ukraine last month. 

The “vote” organised in Abkhazia on March 12, “instead of strengthening, further erodes stability in this region and is, moreover, the wrong signal at the wrong time”, the statement said.

The de facto authorities of the occupied Abkhazia held so-called parliamentary elections on Saturday. The Georgian Foreign Ministry called the elections a “futile attempt to legitimise the illegal occupation” of the country’s territories, calling on Russia to withdraw its 2008 recognition of the Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) regions as independent states.

The Congress of the Council of Europe is an institution representing local and regional authorities from the 47 member states of the Council of Europe. Georgia became the 41st member state on April 27, 1999.