Georgia reports Shootout in S.Ossetia
Georgian posts in the South Ossetian conflict zone came under fire from South Ossetian militias overnight and early on July 29, Rustavi 2 TV and the Georgian Public Broadcaster reported.
According to the reports, posts located on the Sarabuki heights were attacked. No one was injured, the reports said. The South Ossetian side has yet to comment.
A group of officials from the Georgian Ministry of Defense, including Deputy Minister Ramaz Nikolaishvili, visited the conflict zone on July 28. The Georgian MoD reported that the delegation also visited, as it put it, “the strategic height” of Sarabuki and placed the Georgian national flag there.
In a separate incident, the Russian command of the Joint Peacekeeping Forces stationed in the conflict zone said late on July 28 that South Ossetian militiamen had prevented peacekeepers and OSCE observers from monitoring the village of Cholibauri. The Georgian side has claimed that South Ossetian militiamen are setting up military fortifications in an area close to the village.
“They [the South Ossetian militiamen] threatened us at gunpoint and even fired several shots into the air over the observers’ heads,” Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies quoted Vladimir Ivanov, a spokesman for the Russian peacekeepers in the conflict zone, as saying late on July 28. “Such actions fuel tensions in the conflict zone.”