MOSCOW. May 19 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian military bases will be withdrawn from Georgia to the Russian territory, while some of the bases' hardware will be deployed in Armenia, Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Yury Baluyevsky told Interfax-Military News Agency on Thursday.
"The bases will be certainly withdrawn to the territory of Russia," he said.
Yet some of the military hardware and property will be moved to Armenia, he said. "That will help us to reduce the withdrawal period to four years," he added.
"It is impossible to build an infrastructure for the military hardware and property on the Russian territory within four years," he said.
Russia had no doubt that it would have to withdraw military bases from Georgia, he said. "Russia pledged to withdraw two bases (the 50th base in Gudauta and the 137th base in Vaziani - Interfax-AVN) and to hold negotiations with Georgia on the terms of other bases' presence in that country at the OSCE summit in Istanbul in 1999. We were unable to agree with Georgia on the legalization of the military bases' issue until recently," he said.
"The Russian Finance Ministry would have been unable to assign funds if we had not legalized the bases' withdrawal," he said.
"Now I think that everybody has realized the need for legalizing the base agreement. Experts will soon coordinate the time and rules for the withdrawal, as well as mutual commitments, which will make the core of the Russian-Georgian accord on military bases," Baluyevsky said.
There are about 50 Russian military facilities in Georgia now, he said.