TBILISI. Nov 10 (Interfax-AVN) - Chief of the Georgian Intelligence Department Avtandil Ioseliani officially assured the self-proclaimed republic of Abkhazia that the Kodori gorge, Abkhazia's only district controlled by Georgia after the conflict of 1992-1993, will not be used as a military bridgehead.
Ioseliani told Interfax-Military News Agency that he had called for summoning the UN Coordination Council's working group for security where "the Abkhaz people will hear such guarantees."
At the same time, he demanded similar guarantees from Abkhazia i.e. that the Abkhaz party will not attempt to break through into the gorge.
Ioseliani stressed that the Abkhaz units had been stationed at approaches to the Kodori gorge near the Lata and Tsebelda villages since May.
"Georgian authorities do not have plans to solve the Abkhaz problem in a military way," Ioseliani said.
Speaking about Abkhazia's demands to open permanent posts of the CIS Collective Peacekeeping Forces in the Kodori gorge, he noted that it would be "purposeless". According to him, "Russian peacekeepers opened such a post in 1996, but it did not exist for a long time, and they removed it themselves because there was no need in it."
"The patrolling of Kodori that is regularly carried out by UN observers and Russian peacekeepers is quite enough," Ioseliani went on.
If such a post is eventually opened, it should be manned jointly by "Russian, Georgian and UN officials," he said.
According to the Abkhaz party, the Kodori gorge hosts over 900 Georgian border guards and National Guard reservists.