The Republic of Abkhazia attentively and fully understands the views expressed by M.V. Zakharova, official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in an interview with Sputnik Georgia.

We express our fundamental solidarity with the well-reasoned assessment that the North Atlantic Alliance's policy in the South Caucasus, and particularly with regard to Georgia, is destabilizing and fraught with serious risks to regional security. The expansion of military-political blocks in close proximity to ongoing conflict zones has historically proven counterproductive and leads not to strengthening stability, but to the creation of new dividing lines and an increase in confrontational potential.

The Republic of Abkhazia, as a sovereign state that has survived the tragedy of Georgian military aggression, understands from its own experience the danger posed by Tbilisi's revanchist aspirations, which could receive inadequate support and encouragement from external forces pursuing their own narrow block interests. We are convinced that the imposition of security standards and models alien to the region undermines the sovereign right of peoples to independently determine their own ways of development and jointly build an architecture of equal and indivisible security in the South Caucasus.

We emphasize that the only reasonable basis for long-term peace and prosperity in our shared region is the rejection of forceful and block-based approaches, mutual respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, and direct, equal dialogue between all participants in the regional process. The Republic of Abkhazia consistently supports such dialogue and is ready to make here a constructive contribution.