TBILISI. Aug 22 (Interfax-AVN) - The commanding staff of the Interior Ministry troops and local authorities will discuss on Thursday details on sending the troops to the volatile Pankisi gorge.
"The meeting will take place at the Akhmeta district's Pichkhovani village," Zharaf Khangoshvili, chief of local administration in the region's largest village of Duisi, told Interfax-Military News Agency on Thursday.
"At present, the Interior Ministry troops, assigned to keep peace in the gorge and fight militants and criminals, stay in the town of Telavi and the district center Akhmeta," Khangoshvili said.
He said that most residents backed up the government's decision to send troops to the region. "It is important that Russia sees Georgia can control its territory and can independently enforce order in the troubled region," Khangoshvili said.
According to the chief of local administration, the Duisi village is inhabited today by 7,000 people, with 3,000 being Chechen refugees.
"The total number of people living in 17 villages of the gorge is roughly 10,000, with about 4,000 Chechen refugees among them.