On 25 February 2010, the president of IDC Paris, Natalia Narochnitskaya, took part in a debate in English entitled “Between Russia and the West: the Challenge of Georgia” at the American Library in Paris.  The event was organised by the cultural foundation, WICE.  Her debating partners were the Georgian ambassador to France, Mr Mamuka Kudava, and Noëlle Lenoir, former French minister for European affairs.

Natalia Narochnitskaya spoke first and started by recalling the long historical friendship which has existed between Georgia and Russia.  As a young girl, she used to read avidly about the exploits of General Bagration, a hero of the Russian imperial army in the Napoleonic wars.  Concerning the current conflict, she emphasised that the secessionist issues in Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia) have their origins in the law on secession from the Soviet Union voted under Mikhail Gorbachev on 3 April 1990.  Article 3 of this law stipulates that if a Soviet republic wishes to secede from the Union then any autonomous entities on its territory must also have the right to decide on their own destiny, i.e. to vote whether to secede as well.  This part of the law was never respected by Georgia (and not by Moldova either) which immediately claimed both Abkhazia and South Ossetia as its own, even though those regions did not want to secede.  For twenty years, Russia had not only respected the territorial integrity of Georgia, in spite of the demands for support from Abkhazia and South Ossetia, she also strenuously encouraged successive Georgian governments to come to an agreement on the issue by granting wide autonomy to the two provinces.  Georgia, for her part, only ever tried to resolve the issue by force, and it was Georgia which attacked South Ossetia on 7 August 2008, provoking a conflict Russia had not sought.

In reply, Noëlle Lenoir underlined the important place which the EU accords to its relations with Russia.  The Georgian ambassador denounced the “occupation” of parts of Georgian territory by Russia, never once mentioning either the Abkhaz or the Ossetian secessionist movements.  For Georgian officials, indeed, all their ills come from Russia and from Russia alone.  A former Georgian minister of education also took part in the debate, Giorgi Nodia.  Asked about the reasons why Georgia had attacked South Ossetia, he made it clear that he was not himself in agreement with this decision.