A convoy of 30 trucks carrying Russian soldiers entered breakaway South Ossetia from Russia via the Roki Tunnel late on May 31, the Georgian Ministry of Defense, as well as influential MP Givi Targamadze, who chairs the Parliamentary Committee for Defense and Security, said on June 1.
According to the Georgian side, there there are at least 1000 Russian servicemen currently stationed in the conflict zone, which twice as many as is envisaged by the agreement.
Russia says that it is sending new servicemen to the South Ossetian conflict zone to rotate its peacekeepers, which are deployed in the South Ossetian conflict zone as part of Joint Peacekeeping Forces (JPKF). The JPKF also involves peacekeepers from the Georgian and Ossetian sides and each party has the right to deploy a maximum of 500 soldiers as part of the JPKF.
“There is no rotation in the Tskhinvali Region [breakaway South Ossetia]; what is happening there is an increase of [Russia’s] military presence there,” MP Targamadze said.
He said that 13 trucks carrying Russian servicemen, as well as 2 infantry combat vehicles were deployed in the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali on May 30 as part of the peacekeepers’ rotation.
According to MP Targamadze, the Russian side stated that number of newly arrived servicemen failed to fill the Russian quota – 500 – in the JPKF.
“So they [the Russian side] said that they will leave part of those servicemen [in the conflict zone] who were already serving there. But not a single serviceman left the conflict zone as envisaged by the rotation procedures. On the contrary, yesterday, late night, they dispatched additional troops with 30 trucks,” MP Targamadze said.
“This is an occupation of part of Georgia’s territory,” MP Targamadze added.
He said that the Parliamentary Committee for Defense and Security has requested that the Georgian Foreign Ministry immediately inform foreign diplomats in Georgia regarding the ongoing events in breakaway South Ossetia and also to request the OSCE mission in Georgia to immediately carry out a monitoring of the JPKF’s base in Tskhinvali. MP Targamadze also called for an emergency session of the quadripartite Joint Control Commission (JCC) to discuss the issue.
“We will wait for the results of these measures, then we will assess the situation and I think at the next session of the Parliament [on June 6] we will push for the adoption of a special resolution, but it will depend on how the situation will develop further,” MP Targamadze said.
MP Targamadze also said that Georgia should “immediately undertake measures directed towards stripping the Russian servicemen of their status of peacekeepers, both in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.”
Another influential parliamentarian, Giga Bokeria, also said on June 1 that the “so called Russian peacekeepers” hinder the political settlement of the conflict and they should leave.
Georgia’s renewed calls for the withdrawal of the Russian peacekeepers comes more than three months after the Georgian Parliament passed a resolution on February 15 instructing the government to replace the current Russian-led peacekeeping operation in the South Ossetian conflict zone with “an effective international peacekeeping operation.” But the resolution set no timeframe, or deadline for the Georgian government.
Meanwhile, Georgian State Minister for Conflict Resolution Issues Giorgi Khaindrava said on June 1 that provocations are not being ruled out in South Ossetia.
“What is now happening there is just a prelude,” he added.
Giorgi Khaindrava held series of talks on June 1 with foreign diplomats in Tbilisi, including with U.S. Ambassador John Tefft, OSCE Head of Mission in Georgia Roy Reeve and German Ambassador Uwe Schramm to discuss the current situation in the conflict zone. Khaindrava also met with Russian Ambassador Vladimir Chkhikvishvili.
