Tbilisi, Sokhumi at Odds over Kodori Monitoring Team

Official Tbilisi is against the Abkhaz side?s proposal to include secessionist authorities? representatives in a group that will monitor upper Kodori Gorge, Ruslan Kishmaria, breakaway Abkhaz leader?s envoy to Gali district, told Interfax news agency on August 10.

?The Georgian side is against the inclusion of Abkhaz military observers in a group that will carry out monitoring [in upper Kodori Gorge], but wants to include Georgian military observers in the group,? Ruslan Kishmaria said.

The issue was discussed at a quadripartite meeting in Chuburkhinji, a village in the Gali district of Abkhazia, on August 10, according to this report.

But Temur Gabisonia, who is among Georgian negotiators at the Chuburkhinji meetings, told Civil Georgia on August 10, that the issue was not discussed at the session at all as problem related with the Kodori Gorge is up to higher level officials to decide.

Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili said on August 9 that UN observers will be able to launch monitoring operations in upper Kodori Gorge starting August 20.

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