Tbilisi Confirms Four Soldiers Held in S.Ossetia
The Georgian Ministry of Defense has confirmed that four of its soldiers were detained by South Ossetian militiamen last night.
“The Georgian state is doing its best to achieve their release,” Mamuka Kurashvili, a Georgian MoD official in charge of overseeing peacekeeping operations in the conflict zones, told journalists on July 8.
Kurashvili’s comment – the first official acknowledgement that the four soldiers were being detained – came hours after the South Ossetian side had broken the news early on July 8.
According to the South Ossetian Press and Information Committee, the servicemen were detained close to the village of Okona in the Znauri district on the South Ossetian side of the administrative border.
Kurashvili, however, claimed that the soldiers had been detained on the Georgian side of the border close to Tseronisi village in the Kareli district.
He said the four servicemen from the logistics battalion of the MoD had been “abducted by an illegal armed gang, consisting of South Ossetian and North Caucasian militiamen.”
He demanded the soldiers’ immediate release without preconditions.
The South Ossetian side, however, said the Georgian soldiers were “officers from the artillery brigade of the Georgian Ministry of Defense.”
One of the detainees is a colonel, one – a corporal and the two others – sergeants, according to the South Ossetian side.
“According to preliminary information obtained during the investigation, the detainees were conducting a reconnaissance operation related with artillery fire correction,” the South Ossetian Press and Information Committee reported.
The Georgian MoD, however, has denied this.
Russian TV stations have aired footage showing South Ossetian militiamen escorting at least two handcuffed men in military uniform, believed to be the Georgian soldiers, inside the breakaway region’s Interior Ministry.
In a separate incident on July 7 the Georgian side reported that its law enforcement agencies had prevented the infiltration of a “group of [South Ossetian] saboteurs.” The group was allegedly trying to gain access to a Georgian-controlled by-pass road linking the Georgian villages to the north of Tskhinvali with the rest of Georgia.
Kurashvili alleged that the group of up to ten militiamen had aimed at placing mines on the by-pass road.
He said that the Georgian side had opened fire and the group was forced to retreat towards a nearby South Ossetian-controlled village. He also claimed the South Ossetian group had sustained casualties. The South Ossetian side has not yet commented on the incident.
