The Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia is an administration recognized by Georgia as the legal and only government of Abkhazia. Abkhazia has been de facto independent of Georgiathough with very little international recognitionsince the early 1990s. Ruslan Abashidze, elected in May 2019, is the current head of the government-in-exile. After the War in Abkhazia Georgia proposed five-party talks involving the Government of the Autonomous Republic, the government of the de facto authorities of Abkhazia, and the government of Georgia, along with Russia and the UN as interested parties, in order to settle the final status of Abkhazia within the framework of the Georgian state. The Abkhaz side wanted assurances that Georgia would not try to solve the issue by force of arms before being a party to the talks. Between September 2006 and July 2008, the Georgian recognized government was headquartered in Upper Abkhazia. However it was forced out of all of Abkhazia in August 2008 during the Russo-Georgian war by the Abkhazian armed forces. Upper Abkhazia is a territory that has population of c. 2,000 and is centered on the upper Kodori Valley. The government-in-exile is partly responsible for the affairs of some 250,000 internally displaced persons who were forced to leave Abkhazia following the War in Abkhazia and the resulting ethnic cleansing of Georgians from the area.
History
During the War in Abkhazia, the Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, then called the "Council of Ministers of Abkhazia", left Abkhazia after the Abkhaz separatist forces took control of the region's capital Sukhumi after heavy fighting on September 27, 1993, leading to the Sukhumi Massacre, in which several members of the Abkhazian government of that time, including its chairman Zhiuli Shartava, were executed by the rebels. The Council of Ministers relocated to Georgia's capital Tbilisi, where it operated as the Government of Abkhazia in exile for almost 13 years. During this period, the Government of Abkhazia in exile, led by Tamaz Nadareishvili, was known for a hard-line stance towards the Abkhaz problem and frequently voiced their opinion that the solution to the conflict can only be attained through Georgia's military response to secessionism. Later, Nadareishvili's administration was implicated in some internal controversies and had not taken an active part in the politics of Abkhazia until a new chairman, Irakli Alasania, was appointed by President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, his envoy in the peace talks over Abkhazia. Amid the 2006 Georgian police operation in Abkhazia's Kodori Gorge, in which a local militia, led by the defiant warlordEmzar Kvitsiani, had been largely disarmed, and the constitutional order restored in the area, President Saakashvili announced, on July 27, 2006, that the authorities had decided to establish the Tbilisi-based Abkhazian government-in-exile in the Kodori Gorge : During the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, the Republic of Abkhazia joined forces with the Ossetians and opened a second front against Georgia. During the Battle of the Kodori Valley Abkhazian forces loyal to the Government of the Republic of Abkhazia pushed the Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia out of the region of Abkhazia. Sergei Bagapsh, President of the Government of the Republic of Abkhazia said in an address to the Abkhazian people that “the jurisdiction of the Abkhaz state has been restored in the upper Kodori Gorge.”
