[lbo-talk] Cossacks, Abkhazians leave S. Ossetia - Saakashvili

Chris Doss lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com
Sat Jul 17 05:42:23 PDT 2004


Jul 16 2004 6:59PM Cossacks, Abkhazians leave S. Ossetia - Saakashvili TBILISI. July 16 (Interfax) - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said that "230 Cossacks, ten Abkhazians and several special- task servicemen who entered South Ossetia from North Ossetia have already been withdrawn from Georgian territory."

"Russian peacekeepers told the separatists that they would not be able to start hostilities. They would not be given the green light for it," Saakashvili said.

Georgia has managed to preserve peace and "all the rest is a matter of time," the president said, adding that "contraband routes" to South Ossetia have been sealed off.

"As for integration of Tskhinvali, Java and Kvaisi [South Ossetia's towns] and another two South Ossetian villages with Georgia, this is a matter of the next few months," he said.

The Joint Control Commission on the Georgian-Ossetian conflict wrapped up its session in Moscow on July 15. The parties agreed that an armed conflict should be prevented. Delegations of Georgia, Russia, South Ossetia, Russia's republic of North Ossetia, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe signed a protocol requiring the conflicting parties to withdraw all army units whose presence in the conflict zone is not authorized.

South Ossetia, a de jure province of Georgia, proclaimed independence in the 1990s.

Tensions in the region have escalated recently, after Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili set out to bring the province back under the control of Tbilisi. The developments there have damaged relations between Russia and Georgia.

A Russian peacekeeping contingent has been deployed in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone.

South Ossetian representatives, however, have expressed skepticism over the Georgian authorities' commitment to a peaceful settlement of the conflict, saying that they fear provocations on the part of Tbilisi.

"I am wary of the information I received yesterday and today," South Ossetian Minister Without Portfolio Boris Chochiyev told a news conference in Moscow on Friday.

Chochiyev said that he has information that armed groups which do not report to the headquarters for the combined peacekeeping forces are stationed in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone and in its immediately proximity.

"We have not seen any steps by Georgia to start putting the Joint Control Commission's protocol into effect," the minister said.

Maj. Gen. Svyatoslav Nabzdorov, commander of the combined peacekeeping forces in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone, said in a telephone interview with Interfax on Friday that a trilateral patrol mission involving peacekeeping force observers had not been allowed earlier today to enter the village of Eredvi to check the observance of quotas regulating the number of servicemen in the conflict zone.

"Georgia is believed to have exceeded its quota by more than 50 servicemen in the village of Eredvi. Georgian police did not allow the trilateral patrol mission made up of observers representing the Russian, Ossetian, and Georgian peacekeeping contingents to enter this village," Nabzdorov said.

"I will submit a report about it to the co-chairmen of the Joint Control Commission on the Georgian-Ossetian conflict as soon as they return from Moscow," the commander said.

Nabzdorov announced immediate plans to visit Tamarasheni, one of the largest Georgian villages in South Ossetia, "where some people are reported to be trying to block a highway. It is also necessary to verify information that Georgia has exceeded its quota for servicemen stationed in this village and the village of Kurta."

Trilateral patrol missions of peacekeeping forces observers are inspecting South Ossetian villages today as well, Nabzdorov said.

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