Lavrov: Tbilisi Uses Missile Incident for Propaganda
Georgia has tried to use the August 6 missile incident for international ?political propaganda,? Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said on August 16.
?Georgia has spared no efforts to influence international public opinion, without Russia?s participation,? Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies quoted Lavrov as saying.
He also said that he hoped the Russian military experts, who arrived in Tbilisi on August 16 to examine the evidence surrounding the missile incident, ?will put an end to this very questionable issue.?
Meanwhile, a lawmaker from the ruling National Movement party, Givi Targamadze, who chairs the parliamentary committee for defense and security, said Tbilisi welcomes involvement of the Russian experts in the investigation.
He, however, said the Russian experts have nothing more to investigate, as an international group of experts has already produced convincing conclusions about the missile incident.
The group, consisting of experts from Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden and the United States, said an unidentified aircraft entered and exited Georgian airspace from Russia on August 6 and dropped guided anti-radar missile near the South Ossetian conflict zone deep into the Georgian territory.
?The only thing Russians have to investigate is to find out which general, or military official should be held responsible for this incident,? MP Givi Targamadze said.