SUKHUMI, July 26 (RIA Novosti) - The president of Georgia's self-proclaimed republic of Abkhazia said Wednesday anyone approaching the republic's border would be shot. | Now that's border control! |
Units from Georgia's Interior Ministry have established control over most of a remote gorge on the border with Abkhazia, local television reported Wednesday. The ministry said earlier in the day that a column of vehicles with some 100 troops had been dispatched to the Kodori Gorge to continue an operation launched Tuesday night to detain Emzar Kvitsiani, a former presidential envoy to the gorge, and his supporters after they refused to recognize the Tbilisi authorities.
"We will shoot to kill [anyone] crossing even one meter into Abhazia's border," Sergei Bagapsh said. He spoke at the end of a meeting with an OSCE delegation on a one-day visit to Abkhazia. He said that by conducting the operation in the Kodori Gorge, Georgia had violated standing agreements. "Georgian troops have defied the 1994 Moscow [ceasefire and disengagement] agreement, and they are flouting Russian peacekeeping forces and ignoring UN military observers," he said.
"All of this time Abkhazia has stood by these agreements. Now Abkhazia will take commensurate action," he said.
Georgia's Rustavi-2 television channel said the police had surrounded Kvitsiani and up to 150 members of his militia near a village and nearby forests. About 80 former members of the Hunter battalion, which was officially disbanded in 2005, laid down their arms after receiving security guarantees from the authorities, the channel said.
Additional: ROME, July 26 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is closely monitoring the situation in the Kodori Gorge and has cautioned Georgia against violating agreements covering the area, the foreign minister said Wednesday. Georgian authorities said earlier they had launched a police operation in the Kodori Gorge, its de facto border with the breakaway region of Abkhazia, to disarm a militia led by Emzar Kvitsiani, a former presidential envoy to the area.
"We are closely watching the development of the situation and we have warned our Georgian colleagues that [any] violation of agreements is unacceptable," Sergei Lavrov said. "I hope that they will heed our call." He was speaking to journalists after a conference on the Middle East conflict in Rome. |