Moscow, Tbilisi Exchange Barbs over Kodori

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said on August 2 that Tbilisi”s decision to station its troops in Kodori Gorge and establish the “so called Abkhaz government-in-exile” there might “blow up the situation” in the region.

“We cannot perceive it as anything other than a deliberate escalation of tensions in this sensitive region,” Karasin said in a statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry on August 2.

He also said that Russian society is “deeply concerned” about developments in Kodori Gorge and “fully supports the decisive position” of Abkhaz leader Sergey Bagapsh. The latter has strongly condemned Tbilisi’s decision to relocate the exiled government, which is currently based in Tbilisi, to Kodori Gorge, and has threatened “to use all means,” both military and diplomatic, to resist the move.

In a response the Georgian Foreign Ministry said that it is up to Tbilisi to decide where to set up the headquarters of the exiled government, “regardless of the position of the separatist rulers of Abkhazia and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.”

“It is the Russian side that has been engaged for years in forceful efforts to “implant” so-called Russian citizens in Abkhazia and then use the protection of their rights as a pretext to grossly interfere in Georgia”s internal affairs,” the Georgian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on August 2.

The Georgian Foreign Ministry also said that Moscow”s statements offering “full support” to the Abkhaz leader is “an overt backing for aggressive plans aimed at forcefully restoring the separatist leader’s control of Kodori Gorge.”

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