 |
| Click on image to enlarge detailed map of breakaway South Ossetia. |
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who refused to pull out Georgian troops from the conflict zone and threatened to withdraw from decade-old peace agreements, convened a session of the National Security Council on July 20 to discuss the recent developments in breakaway South Ossetia.
“The commander of the Russian peacekeeping troops [Viacheslav Nabzdorov] explained that the Russian peacekeepers are exchanging old armored vehicles for new ones. If it’s really a rotation process, we have no problems. However, movement of any armament into the conflict zone should be coordinated with the Georgian side. We will not tolerate these kinds of unilateral moves,” Nino Burjanadze, the Parliamentary Chairperson, told reporters after the session of the National Security Council.
She added that the Georgian side fears this armament “will go into the hands of the separatists.”
“Unauthorized weapon and armament in the conflict zone will share the fate of the “Fagot” anti-tank missile systems,” said Irakli Okruashvili, the Georgian Interior Minister, eluding to two Russian trucks carrying unguided missiles into South Ossetia that were seized by the Georgian side on July 7.
Chief of Staff of the Georgian Armed Forced Givi Iukuridze told reporters after the session of the National Security Council that after the Georgian side protested, Russia stopped moving its armament into the breakaway region. However, more than a dozen armored vehicles have already reportedly been stationed in unspecified areas controlled by the South Ossetian side.
The armament was moved into the breakaway region via Roki Pass, which links South Ossetia with Russia’s North Ossetian Republic. The Georgian side continues its efforts to convince Russia to set up a joint checkpoint at Roki Pass, as Tbilisi puts it, “to prevent smuggling and arms trafficking” in the region.
Meanwhile, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili threatened on July 20 to abandon a peace agreement signed by Georgia’s ex-President Eduard Shevardnadze in 1992 regarding the ceasefire in South Ossetia. Saakashvili also said that the Georgian side will not pull out its forces from the Georgian villages in the conflict zone.
Statements made by President Saakashvili, while addressing the inaugural session of the local Parliament in the capital of the Adjara Autonomous Republic Batumi on July 20, have triggered concerns in Moscow and Tskhinvali.
“We can not leave the Georgian villages there [in breakaway South Ossetia] without protection. We cannot pin our hopes on Russian peacekeepers and their commander [Viacheslav Nabzdorov] alone,” Saakashvili said on July 20, while addressing the Adjarian MPs.
“They [the South Ossetian militias] have tried several times to take over the Georgian villages. They failed because our troops were there. Now they try to force us to leave the conflict zone through agreements and negotiations. But it is not so easy to deceive us. I know what will happen if the Georgian forces withdraw. The Ossetian side will take over the Georgian villages and we won’t be able to control even those areas [in the breakaway region] which are currently under our control. No, we will not pull out our police forces from the Georgian villages,” President Saakashvili said later on July 20.
Georgia undertook commitments to pull out its extra troops from the conflict zone under a protocol signed in frames of the quadripartite Joint Control Commission (JCC) on June 2. Tbilisi reiterated its commitment by signing another protocol during the JCC session in Moscow on July 16.
The conflicting sides, as well as the Russian side, are allowed to have a maximum of 500 soldiers each as a part of a joint – Russian, Georgian and South Ossetian – peacekeeping force in the conflict zone, according to the peace deal signed in 1992.
President Saakashvili also said that he is ready “to withdraw and denounce all the agreements” signed by the Georgia’s previous government, in case any of these documents are in direct contradiction to Georgia’s national interests.
Saakashvili’s statement prompted the South Ossetian side to warn that the peace agreement signed more than 10 years ago is “a guarantor of peace in the region.”
“Sometimes I have an impression that we have to deal with two Georgias – one which signs protocols and undertakes commitments to peacefully solve the conflict and the second one which threatens war,” Boris Chochiev, the South Ossetian representative at the quadripartite Joint Control Commission, told Russian reporters on July 20.
The Russian Foreign Ministry also warned on July 20 that the withdrawal from the 1992 peace agreement threatens the renewal of an armed conflict in the region.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili also accused “the Russian special services” of attempts to destabilize situation in the conflict zone. “We have all the evidence, including intercepted radio communications, that the detention of 38 Georgian soldiers [in South Ossetia] was masterminded by the Russian special services,” Mikheil Saakashvili said, referring to the July 8 incident, when Georgian peacekeepers were disarmed and arrested in the village of Vanati in the conflict zone.
Most of them were released on July 8; however three Georgian soldiers are still being detained in the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali.
Mikheil Saakashvili said that Georgia wants to cooperate closely with Russia, adding, however, that “our friendship with Russia ends when they infringe on our state interests, including our territorial integrity.”
The recent war of words between the conflicting sides comes four days after the signing of a protocol in Moscow. The Georgian, South Ossetian, Russian and North Ossetian sides agreed to solve the crisis through dialogue at the two-day long session of the JCC on July 16 in the Russian capital.
