TBILISI. May 8 (Interfax-AVN) - A new meeting of the Georgian-Russian working group on the return of Chechen refugees from the Pankisi gorge will happen in the first half of June, Tamaz Chogovadze, official spokesman for the emergencies department of the Georgian Foreign Ministry, told Interfax- Military News Agency on Wednesday.
"The Georgian party is ready for constructive cooperation with Russian agencies in the sphere of solving the problem of Chechen refugees. It is not ruled out that officials of the Russian Emergencies Ministry will visit the Pankisi gorge and meet with the refugees," Chogovadze said.
He stressed that he had no data on conditions and variants of the return to Chechnya that will be offered to the refugees. "This is the Russian party's prerogative, and the Georgian authorities are ready to contribute to their return by all means," Chogovadze said.
The first meeting of Georgian and Russian experts on solving the refugee problem in the gorge took place in Tbilisi in mid- February this year. An interdepartmental operations group formed by the Russian Emergencies Ministry was led by Deputy Emergencies Minister Yuri Brazhnikov. Participants in the meeting discussed organization of transportation and accommodation of people, who would be willing to return to their homeland.
Moreover, the two parties reached an agreement on holding a new census among the refugees in the gorge by the Georgian authorities. The census has already ended; some 3,700 refugees were registered, but the total number of refugees in the Pankisi gorge is estimated at 6,000 to 7,000 people.