The nearly 16-year-old United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) ended effectively at 0400 GMT on Tuesday, when a draft resolution that would have extended its mandate for just two weeks to allow divergent views to coalesce around a new security regime in the region failed to pass, owing to a veto exercised by the Russian Federation.
The draft resolution, submitted by Austria, Croatia, France, Germany, Turkey, UK and the US, was defeated by a vote of 10 in favour to one against (Russian Federation), with four abstentions (China, Libya, Uganda and Vietnam). This happened at a time when, according to the latest report from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the local population remained in a precarious situation and a ceasefire regime was eroding.
The force, which currently fields 131 military observers and 20 policemen, was created in 1993 to oversee a ceasefire accord between the Georgian government and Abkhaz separatist authorities.
The envoys of Britain, France, the United States, Germany and Croatia voiced regret over the Russian veto and reaffirmed their commitment to Georgia's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
But Russia's representative, Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, was quoted as saying that his country rejected the draft resolution because it referred to Georgia's "territorial integrity". Churkin described that phrase as "poison".
"There was one issue on which we could not compromise and that is the territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognised borders," Germany's UN envoy Thomas Matussek said on behalf of the so-called Group of Friends of Georgia - Britain, Croatia, Germany, France and the United States.
(With agencies.)
