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Minister for Foreign Affairs of Abkhazia

political office

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 7, 2026
Entity authorityQ4294395 ↗
Source-derived summary

The office of Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Abkhazia was created on 17 May 1993, during the 1992–1993 war with Georgia. Empirical data nevertheless show that Abkhazia's Foreign Ministry also enacts (mostly low-level) diplomatic relations, such as the sending of diplomatic notes, with various countries across the world, including Nauru, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Syria. It is also active in managing relations with other post-Soviet de facto states such as South Ossetia, Transnistria, and the Lugansk People's Republic.

History

Government of President Ardzinba

On 30 April 1997, former Aidgylara Chairman Sergei Shamba was appointed Foreign Minister instead of Konstantin Ozgan, who had been appointed First Vice Premier, succeeding Sergei Bagapsh, who had been appointed Prime Minister on 29 April.

Shamba remained Foreign Minister until he resigned on 15 June 2004 along with First Vice Premier Astamur Tarba (who eventually stayed on) and Security Service Chairman Givi Agrba following the murder of opposition politician Garri Aiba. Shamba was temporarily replaced by his deputy Gueorgui Otyrba on 18 July, and permanently by Abkhazia's representative in Moscow Igor Akhba on 28 July. On 14 December 2004, following the Tangerine Revolution but while Vladislav Ardzinba was still president, he re-arranged the cabinet. Sergei Shamba was re-appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs and additionally became Vice-Premier.

Government of President Bagapsh

After the election of Sergei Bagapsh as president, Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba was one of the few Ministers to be re-appointed, on 26 March 2005.

Following the re-election of Bagapsh, Shamba was appointed prime minister (as outgoing prime minister Alexander Ankvab had been elected vice president), he was succeeded by his deputy Maxim Gvinjia on 26 February.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Minister for Foreign Affairs of Abkhazia” is political office. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Minister, Foreign and Affairs, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1993, 1992, 1997, 2004—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1993-05-17. For this dossier, Minister, Foreign and Affairs is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “political office” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4294395. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1993, 1992, 1997 and 2004.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Minister for Foreign Affairs of Abkhazia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.