Authorities Ready to Negotiate with UN Observers’ Kidnappers
(Tbilisi, June 9 2003, Civil Georgia) – President Shevardnadze said in his Monday radiobroadcast on June 9, “UN observers’ abduction is an alarming incident.”
“We are ready to hold talks with the kidnapers to solve the problem and ensure observers’ harmless release,” Eduard Shevardnadze said.
According to the unofficial reports kidnappers demand USD 3 million; however UN Observers Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) makes no comment regarding the report.
He said that the Security and Defense Ministries, as well as his envoy to Kodori gorge Emzar Kvitsiani are actively involved in search operation.
“We do not know kidnapped observers’ whereabouts, but I hope we will find them and appropriate measures will be carried towards the kidnappers,” President Shevardnadze said.
UN observers Klaus Ott and Herbert Bauer of Germany and Henrik Soerensen of Denmark, and their Georgian interpreter Lasha Chikashua were kidnapped by the unknown armed group on June 5 while on a routine patrol in troubled Kodori gorge, which is the only part of breakaway Abkhazia under the Georgian authorities’ control.
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