Politics

“Some American senators recently invited me to a breakfast with president Donald Trump,” says Abkhazia’s foreign minister Daur Kove. “But then the State Department rejected my visa.” For most senior diplomats this would represent a major international incident. But for the foreign minister of a separatist region in the Caucasus, visa denials come with the territory.

Abkhazia broke away from Georgia during a brutal conflict in the early 1990s. Aged 13 at the time, Kove volunteered in a hospital to treat the wounded and then watched his country disappear into isolation as the international community imposed sanctions. The picturesque Black Sea territory was formally recognised by Moscow in 2008. The western view of Abkhazia is that it’s a Russian-controlled puppet state; while the minister is dismissive of the idea, he concedes that Russia is overwhelmingly his government’s primary partner.

Kove’s wish to transform partial recognition into actual statehood is no easy task. Many Georgians fled Abkhazia during the conflict and allege that ethnic cleansing took place; the war is frozen rather than over. Meanwhile, Russia has several thousand troops posted close to Abkhazia’s capital and western politicians decry the Russian “occupation and militarisation” of the region, as then-US secretary of state John Kerry once put it.

Many foreign ministries won’t talk to Kove and his team. So Abkhazia has to be creative about diplomacy: cultural exchanges and exercises in image-building. Since assuming office last year, Kove has been lobbying for recognition. But his budget remains limited, dependent on Russian aid. “I travel economy,” says the minister.