Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili confirmed that a car with chief Russian negotiator for the South Ossetian issues Yuri Popov and deputy commander of the Russian land forces Valery Evnevich in it was stopped by the Georgian Military Police near Gori.
The car belonging to the Russian Embassy in Tbilisi was on its way from Tbilisi to the breakaway South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali.
Gela Bezhuashvili said that movement of Russian officials in the conflict zone was not agreed with the Georgian side in advance.
?There is an agreement that movement in the conflict zone should be agreed two weeks earlier, but this has not happened. I call on everyone to refrain from movement in the conflict zone,? Gela Bezhuashvili said.
But the Russian military officials said on July 14 that the movement was preliminarily agreed with the Georgian side.
?A car of the Russian Embassy in Georgia on which we were going to Tskhinvali to participate in a ceremony marking 14-year anniversary of deployment of the Russian peacekeeping troops in South Ossetia was blocked by about 20 representatives of the Georgian Military Police,? Yuri Popov, who represents the Russian Foreign Ministry in the quadripartite negotiating body Joint Control Commission, told RIA Novosti news agency via phone.
Valery Evnevich, the Deputy Commander of the Russian land forces in charge of the peacekeeping operations, told the RIA Novosti that Georgian officers’ ?behavior was very rude and they insistently recommended us to return back to Tbilisi.?
Latter the Russian officials returned to Tbilisi. RIA Novosti news agency reported that the Russian Foreign Ministry has sent a protest note to the Georgian side regarding the incident.
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