TBILISI. Aug 12 (Interfax-AVN) - The Georgian Defense Ministry will hold an exercise in the eastern part of the country near the Pankisi gorge, the defense minister's press secretary Nino Sturua told Interfax-Military News Agency on Monday.
"The exercise was planned beforehand," Sturua said. Originally it was to take place on April 17 this year, but after a growth of tensions in the Kodori gorge where a Russian peacekeeping company was landed without clearance with the Georgian authorities the ministry considered it purposeless to relocate units to the east.
Sturua would not say whether the exercise was related to the recent statement of Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze that the order in the Pankisi gorge will be established within one or 1.5 months.