With their habit of breaking up and getting back together again, Georgia and the South Pacific country of Tuvalu sometimes seem like the Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton of international relations.
On March 31, Tuvalu and Georgia became an official item for the second time in three years. The two first linked up in 2011, with Georgia offering a present of $12,000 worth of medicine.
At the time, scoffers said Georgia was only attracted to Tuvalu’s vote at the United Nations General Assembly. For Georgia and Russia, every vote counts at the UN, where the two battle for the international non-recognition or recognition, respectively, of separatist Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
But Georgia severed ties with Tuvalu less than a year after learning where to find the island on a map. The split was caused by Tuvalu suddenly wanting to do its own thing and support breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia's independence in September 2011.
It was widely believed that Russia, ever the debonaire seducer, had wooed Funafuti away. Before Tuvalu, nearby Nauru also had stepped forth to recognize the independence of the breakaway couple. Vanuatu nearly went bipolar on the issue, changing its mood nearly every month.
In 2012, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov even went so far as to don a bright topical shirt and lei and whisper into Fiji's ear, too. But here, the courtship fell flat.
Georgia begged Fiji to resist the temptation of Lavrov, and asked the West, and the Pacific Islands' big uncles, Australia and New Zealand, to intervene.
What prompted Tuvalu, in the end, to rethink its Russian fling and come back to Georgia is not known, but the Pacific island-state now has conclusively retracted its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia's independence and asked Tbilisi to let bygones be bygones.
Whether or not the two will now be together for the long haul, we don’t know. Moscow, busy fending off Western attacks over Crimea, remains silent. As do the spurned breakaways, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
But since the March 27 UN vote showed a strong lack of international support for Russian policy on Crimea, who knows . . . maybe one day, Lavrov and his tropical shirt could be setting off on a Pacific voyage once again.
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
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