MOSCOW. Aug 5 (Interfax-AVN) - The General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces has no plans to stage a military operation to eliminate Chechen militants in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge.
"The General Staff is not drafting plans for an operation to eliminate Chechen militants and foreign mercenaries in the Pankisi Gorge," a high-ranking official of the staff told Interfax-Military News Agency.
"The Defense Ministry still hopes the Georgian side will appreciate Russia's concern, assess the critical situation in the Pankisi, and intensify law enforcement activities aimed at restoring order in the gorge and ensuring appropriate protection of the Russia-Georgia border," the official said.
According to him, "the Russian Defense Ministry has irrefutable data confirming that there are still large terrorist gangs on the Georgian territory, and the country's leadership can do nothing with them."
"A dramatic deterioration of the situation on the Chechen strap of the Russian-Georgian border results from the inconsistent stance of the Georgian leadership and inactivity of the country's law-enforcement agencies," he said.
"The latest attempt of a Chechen rebel gang to break through to Chechnya from the Georgian territory is the largest sally of bandits from the Pankisi Gorge in the past two years," the official said.
"The command of the Russian Armed Forces has repeatedly drawn attention of their Georgian colleagues to dangerous concentration of Chechen rebels and mercenaries in Pankisi," he noted.
"Rebels and mercenaries have turned this region of Georgia into an international terrorist base where they fill stocks of arms and ammunition, treat injured ones and set up new detachments," the official concluded.