Thursday, 17 February 2005MOSCOW - Russia's foreign minister has played down a row with ex-Soviet Georgia over a wreath-laying
ceremony and says he hopes the spat will not provoke "artificial" problems in his visit there on Friday.
Georgia on Wednesday downgraded the trip by Sergei Lavrov from an official, to a working, visit because he had
declined an invitation to lay a wreath at a memorial to Georgians killed in the war with the Moscow-backed breakaway
region of Abkhazia.
Lavrov, speaking to Russian journalists in Armenia, said the Abkhazia issue in which Russia has a role as a
mediator was too "emotionally loaded" for him to make such a gesture.
"It is a conflict that cost the lives of innocent people on all sides and, when one looks at its reasons and
consequences, one that requires quite a lot of commentary and explanation," he was quoted as saying by Interfax news
agency on Thursday.
Lavrov said his trip on Friday to Georgia -- the first by a Russian foreign minister since a Western-leaning
government swept to power there -- had been well-planned. He said the Georgians had proposed the wreath-laying at
the last minute.
"We hope this episode will not create artificial problems for fruitful negotiations in Tbilisi over key Russian-Georgian
issues," he said.
Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili said on Wednesday that Lavrov's refusal to lay a wreath was "not a
good-neighbourly or appropriate gesture".
Lavrov's trip is aimed at helping to mend relations left tattered by disputes between the ex-Soviet neighbours over
breakaway regions including Abkhazia and Georgia's demand that Moscow withdraw Soviet-era military bases from
Georgian soil.
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Thursday, 17 February 2005
Reuters via Swissinfo
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