TBILISI. March 28 (Interfax-AVN) - U.S. military instructors will arrive in Georgia to train the national army's special- purpose units in terms fixed in an earlier finalized plan, Georgian Defense Minister David Tevzadze told reporters on Thursday.
Tevzadze once again declined to disclose concrete terms of the specialists' arrival. At first the instructors were supposed to arrive on March 20, then the date was postponed to March 25, but no official statement on the start of their work has been made.
So far Georgia is implementing its obligations concerning preliminary training of personnel from specially selected units so that the U.S. instructors would not start working from scratch, Tevzadze said.
The defense minister stressed that there was no background for linking the U.S.-Georgian military cooperation program with the possibility of using the units trained by American instructors in a war against Abkhazia. This is absolute nonsense, Tevzadze added.
He said that Tbilisi had obtained information on the escalation of activities in the 58th Russian joint-arms army on the border with Georgia.
"We observe those processes, and if the situation becomes critical the Georgian authorities will apply to the Russian party for explanations through diplomatic channels," the defense minister stressed.