Abkhazian parliament has approved President Sergey Bagapsh’s address to Russia to regognize its independence from Georgia.
      
      The president also called for a friendship and mutual assistance treaty, which would call for maintaining Russian peacekeepers in the region. Abkhazia intends to set diplomatic relations between Russia and Abkhazia.
      
      “I propose that the Russian Federation recognize the Republic of Abkhazia as a sovereign and independent state and establish diplomatic relations between Abkhazia and Russia,” Mr. Bagapsh said in his appeal.
      
      In view of recent events in South Ossetia and Abkhazia "the existence of Abkhazia and Georgia in one state is impossible," says Mr. Bagapsh.
      
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