Recent announcements may be a step toward normalizing transport and crucial economic relations between Georgia and Abkhazia.

Below is an article published by Moscow Times:

Georgia is prepared to lift an economic blockade on […] Abkhazia, the minister leading negotiations with the state's separatist regions said Friday [8 February 2008].

Temur Iakobashvili, Georgian State Minister for Reintegration, did not say what conditions might be attached. Abkhazia has rejected past Georgian offers because they were tied to diluting its claim to independence.

But Iakobashvili, brought into the government in a reshuffle last month [January 2008], struck a tone that was more conciliatory than the rhetoric from Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

[…]

"I am ready to discuss the question of lifting economic sanctions," the minister said. "We can look at everything, there are no taboo subjects: not sanctions, not the railway," he said.

A rail link between Tbilisi and the Abkhaz capital Sukhumi, has been severed since […] a 1990s war. Georgia's navy also frequently prevents ships from docking in Abkhazia's ports.

"We can discuss all of this, we must do everything to restore relations between us, economic and trade relations," Iakobashvili said.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili will meet with U.S. President George W. Bush next month [March 2008] to discuss the ex-Soviet republic […] and efforts at democratic improvements ahead of parliamentary elections.

Saakashvili's election last month [January 2008] followed a violent crackdown on opponents that damaged Georgia's aspirations to accelerate integration into Western institutions, including NATO.

The White House said Bush and Saakashvili would meet on March 19 [2008].