Vanuatu Recognizes Abkhazia!!

Tuesday, May 31 in Port Vila, the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu formally announced that it recognized the Republic of Abkhazia as an independent state.  

The Republic of Vanuatua, formerly known as the New Hebrides, became independent in 1980 from joint British and French rule.  Vanuatu has a population of approximately 243,000 in an archipelago of 65 inhabited islands that range about 800 miles from north to south in the Pacific Ocean about 1,000 miles off the northeast coast of Australia and west of Fiji.  The nation pursues an independent foreign policy and believes that Abkhazia has the right of self-determination.

Vanuatu will likely be only the first of many smaller nations to recognize Abkhazia in the coming months.  The news follows the sad announcement Sunday of the death of Abkhazia's President, Sergey Bagapsh, in Moscow. But it also shows that Vanuatu's recognition is not tied to any one leader in Abkhazia, but to Abkhazia itself and the course of independence and development the nation has set.

For those who question how the recognition of Abkhazia by Vanuatu was achieved, it was strictly through diplomatic efforts.  Congratulations to the Republic of Abkhazia on this important step!

Comments

[elena]

Thanks Bruce for one god news in this sad days!

[max]

Thank you Bruce.
I am sure people of Abkhazia will appreciate this brave decision of this small country that have much courage then many bigger nations threatened by US for recognition of Abkhazia and not doing so.
This also shows that recognition of Abkhazia will come. It is just a matter of mid-term period.

[David]

Source?

[Penn]

Vanuatu is a powerful country, abkhazia deserves more now...

[Pat]

Thank you, Bruce

[max]

http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-caucasian-wars-go-pacific-4116

Now Georgia has found a way to strike back, via Tuvalu, the closest Pacific state to Nauru. On September 11, it was reported that the government in Tbilisi is “providing financial aid to the permanent mission of Tuvalu to the United Nations.” Later it was confirmed that Georgia had paid for a medical shipment to Tuvalu worth “about $12,000,” or roughly one dollar for each of the island’s inhabitants.

And, hey presto, Tuvalu was one of fifty countries (along, incidentally, with the Marshall Islands and Micronesia) which voted in favor of the recent Georgian-sponsored United Nations General Assembly reaffirming the right of return of all refugees to Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Naturally Nauru (and the Solomon Islands) were among seventeen nations voting against.