TBILISI. April 10 (Interfax-AVN) - The Georgian authorities on Wednesday bluntly refuted repots that Igla portable surface-to- air missile (SAM) systems confiscated from Chechen rebels belonged to the Georgian Armed Forces.
"The Russian special services informed the Georgian party on March 20 that two Igla systems confiscated in Chechnya should allegedly be in the inventory of the Georgian Armed Forces," Mirian Kiknadze, chief of the Georgian Defense Ministry PR department, told Interfax-Military News Agency on Wednesday. According to him, stock-taking of armament in all units that have such systems took place immediately. "All assets of that type were in stock," Kiknadze said.
He stressed that the Georgian party was interested in tracking the origin of any Georgian armament that was found in Chechnya. However "Georgian Defense Ministry officials should be involved in the investigation," he said.
The information on the Georgian origin of the two Igla systems were found in a rebel ammo cache near the Vedeno village was passed to reporters by Lieutenant General Vladimir Moltenskoi, commander of the unified federal group in the North Caucasus. A subsequent inspection proved that both systems were on the list of missile and artillery assets left to the Georgian army after the USSR collapsed. According to Moltenskoi, the information on the matter was provided to him by Russian Armed Forces Chief-of-Staff Anatoly Kvashnin.