TBILISI. Dec 28 (Interfax-AVN) - Georgian Defense Minister David Tevzadze has reported to President Eduard Shevardnadze that he considers inexpedient the withdrawal of additional Georgian army units from the volatile Kodori gorge.
The units were moved to the gorge bordering on the breakaway Abkhazian region in October this year to protect the local population.
"Decisions on movement and withdrawal of army units in and from various regions of the country are a prerogative of Georgia's political leadership, that is why the Defense Ministry can only provide recommendations and obey to orders of the commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces," Deputy Defense Minister Gela Bezhashvili told reporters in Tbilisi on Friday.
Sources in the UN mission in Georgia told Interfax-Military News Agency that both the Abkhaz authorities and envoy of the UN secretary general Dieter Boden demanded withdrawal of the Georgian army unit numbering about 350 people from the gorge. One of the sources said "Boden's stance, coordinated with Kofi Annan, is that relocation of additional Georgian troops to the gorge is a violation of the 1994 Moscow agreement on cease-fire and separation of belligerent parties."
According to Bezhuashvili, Tevzadze is planning to discuss the issue with the leader of the UN military observer mission in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict zone, General Anis Akhmed Bajwa, in a few days. "Georgia does not have to coordinate decisions on movement of its army units inside the country with anybody, especially when it concerns protection of the people residing in a certain region," he stressed.