South Ossetia Accuses Tbilisi of Stirring Tensions

Interior Minister of breakaway South Ossetia Mikhail Mindzaev accused the Georgian side of ?deliberately escalating tensions? and said that currently situation in the conflict zone is ?critical,? the South Ossetian Press and Information Committee reported on June 17.

He said that after the Georgian side has unilaterally repositioned its police checkpoint near the Ossetian village of Zemo Prisi, the South Ossetian side had to deploy interior ministry?s forces in the village ?to protect local population.?

?The Georgian side is trying to provoke us on counter measures against the Georgian population, but we will not yield to these provocations? We are sitting on a gunpowder barrel,? Mindzaev said.

He also accused, as he put it, ?American instructors? of helping the Georgian side in planning and carrying out police operations in the conflict zone, in particular the June 9 police operation in the village of Avnevi when ethnic Ossetian was arrested for alleged trafficking of counterfeit currency.

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