GUAM WITHDRAWS FROZEN-CONFLICTS PROPOSAL

Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili told journalists in Tbilisi on December 7 that the GUAM member states (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova) have asked the UN General Assembly to postpone discussion, originally scheduled for December 7, of GUAM's draft resolution on so-called frozen conflicts on its members' territory, Caucasus Press reported. The website www.izvestia.ru attributed that request on December 7 to disagreements among the four GUAM members over the proposed text of the draft resolution. On November 21, Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the UN, unveiled an appeal to UN member states adopted on October 4 by the unrecognized republics of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transdniester, to reject the GUAM initiative (see "RFE/RL Newsline," November 22, 2006). That appeal argued that the decision to raise the issue with the UN General Assembly, rather than the UN Security Council, reflects a desire to enlist support for their bid to use force "to quash the legitimate aspiration of our peoples to live in...peace and equality." On Decembe  1, Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian warned that such a UN General Assembly debate would create obstacles to the ongoing search for a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Noyan Tapan reported. LF