SUKHUMI. Oct 11 (Interfax-AVN) - Abkhazia does not doubt that the Georgian authorities prepared Chechen rebels for a raid into Abkhazia, Abkhazian Defense Minister Vladimir Mikanba told Interfax on Wednesday.
He said that according to the Chechen rebels, detained over the past few days, "Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze's official representative in the Kodori gorge, Emzar Kvistiani, is in the rebel group."
Mikanba said that since the Russian authorities have strengthened their borders in Karachayevo-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria and the Krasnodar territory, the guerrillas have changed their plans, too. "The prisoners confessed that they had been assigned the task of approaching Sukhumi as closely as possible from the side of the mountains," Mikanba said.
He said that the Abkhazian armed forces "will eliminate the terrorists, and will not hold any talks either with the terrorists or with the Georgian authorities."