Georgia demands UN investigates Russian troop deployment
“We have serious suspicions that there have been violations,” said Nika Sturova, the vice president of the defence and security committee.
Sturova said Georgia believed that Moscow had exceeded the quota of troops allowed for its contingent in the pro-Russian province and that “illegal weapons” had been deployed there.
Sturova said that the UN was going to send extra observers to check on the weapons displayed.
Extra Russian troops were deployed on Thursday in Abkhazia, despite objections from Georgia, which denounced the move as a “dangerous escalation”.
The development sparked expressions of concern from the United Nations, the European Union and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Russia already had a force of more than 2,000 stationed there as part of an agreement ending the armed conflict in the early 1990s between the Abkhaz separatists and the Georgian government.
That agreement allows for up to 3,000 Russian soldiers to be deployed there, said Abhkhaz foreign affairs spokesman Sergei Chamba. It is not clear how many Russian soldiers arrived in the region on Thursday.
The United Nations observers’ mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) was set up in 1993 to ensure the ceasefire there was respected.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Georgia is “forcing” a military build-up in Abkhazia after the separatist region’s air defence forces “appropriately” shot down two unmanned Georgian spy planes. “By resorting to reckless schemes with unmanned spy planes and forcing a military build-up near the conflict zone, the authorities in Tbilisi are intentionally fuelling tensions in the region,” the ministry said yesterday on its website. “The Georgian side bears full responsibility for the consequences of this course.”
Georgia’s acting Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze denied Russian media reports that Abkhaz forces had shot down two Georgian aircraft over Abkhazia, saying by telephone that they are part of a “disinformation campaign” aimed at “covering up” Russia’s military buildup in the region.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on April 30 that it had increased its peacekeeping force in Abkhazia and added 15 observation posts on the Abkhaz border with the rest of Georgia in response to “provocative actions” by Georgian forces.
About 2,000 Russian peacekeepers are stationed in Abkhazia under a Commonwealth of Independent States mandate.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on May 2 that she was “very concerned” by Russia’s troop build-up in Abkhazia and planned to raise the matter with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
