Sokhumi Denies Involvement in Shooting Incident

The Abkhaz side claimed it had nothing to do with the shooting incident in the village of Ganmukhuri on January 4.

The Georgian Interior Ministry and the Foreign Ministry said on Sunday the Georgian police post came under fire in Ganmukhuri at the Abkhaz administrative border from the Abkhaz side of the boundary line. No one was injured.

“The shooting could have been staged by the Georgian side in order to justify sending of additional forces in the border areas,” Zakan Nanba, the deputy defense minister of the breakaway region, told the Interfax news agency. Georgia denies sending of any additional troops at the Abkhaz administrative border.

The Georgian Foreign Ministry said that the attack in Ganmukhuri was part of “a continued chain of criminal acts.” A total of ten Georgian policemen were killed in the areas close to the Abkhaz and South Ossetian administrative borders since the end of the August war.

“[Georgia] has been continuously reiterating that the impertinent assaults are carried out by the Russian side and its proxies [reference to the Abkhaz and South Ossetian secessionist authorities], the aim of which is to provoke Georgia and further escalate tensions in the region,” the Georgian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “It is clear to the international community that Russia and its armed forces are the sources of threat in the occupied regions of Georgia.”

It also said that incidents in the border areas further demonstrate that “the first priority goal is to ensure implementation of an effective international monitoring precisely on the very territories occupied and being controlled by Russia.”

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