MOSCOW, February 15 (AVN) - The UN envoy to Georgia on Tuesday praised the CIS Collective Peacekeeping Forces in the zone of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict for preventing renewal of hostilities there in the past 1.5 months.
Only thanks to tough actions of the Russian military, which form the backbone of the peacekeeping forces, a new escalation of hostilities was prevented, Dieter Boden, special envoy of the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, told the Military News Agency.
According to him, CIS peacekeepers play the key role in settlement of the conflict, and their withdrawal from the area would be untimely. The United Nations is not able to maintain its own peacekeepers in the area, as it already spends several million US dollars a year on its Georgian mission, Boden said.
Thus, the envoy put an end to all speculations about possible replacement of Russian peacekeepers with UN-financed troops.
The CIS Collective Peacekeeping Forces were moved to the conflict zone on June 24, 1994 after the CIS Heads of State Council issued a corresponding sanction. They are stationed on both banks of Inguri River which divides Abkhazia and the western Georgian region of Megrelia.
The peacekeepers maintain the so-called 'security zone' which extends for 12 km from the river in both directions and the 'limited arms zone' which extends for 24 km in both directions.
The Forces comprise about 1,500 servicemen, some 100 armoured vehicles, 18 guns and mortars and four helicopters. The left (Georgian) bank of the Inguri is occupied by a motorised rifle battalion of the 27th peacemaking motorised rifle division from the Maritime military district. The right (Abkhazian) bank is controlled by a motorised rifle battalion of the 131st motorised rifle brigade from the North Caucasian district, a composite paratrooper battalion, an artillery battery, and a separate field engineer company.
The mandate of the Forces is prolonged until June 31, 2000.