TBILISI. Jan 14 (Interfax-AVN) - Georgian State Security Minister Valery Khaburdzaniya will fly to Moscow on Monday to meet Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Nikolai Patrushev, a spokesman for the ministry told Interfax-Military News Agency.
The visit will be of working nature, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze told a news conference on Monday. He added that the visit had nothing to do with planning a joint operation of Georgian and Russian law-enforcement agencies in the Pankisi gorge.
According to Shevardnadze, the state security minister is tasked to focus on the situation in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia, measures against terrorism and drug trafficking, as well as coordination of activities of anti-terrorist centers in both countries.
Shevardnadze said he was planning to discuss the situation in the Pankisi gorge with leaders of the country's law- enforcement agencies. In particular, the officials will analyze in details the relocation of Interior Ministry strongpoints established on the approaches to the gorge in December 2000 deeper into the gorge. "The aim of the relocation is to localize and isolate the criminal elements that have gathered in the Pankisi gorge," Shevardnadze stressed.