STAVROPOL. Nov 18 (Interfax-AVN) - Border guards from Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan will hold joint exercises in December, the Russian Federal Border Guard Service announced on Monday.
"The joint command post exercises for border guards from Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan will take place near Dagestan in late December," Lieutenant General Valery Putov, chief of staff of the North Caucasus border guard department, told Interfax-Military News Agency.
The border guards will receive training in the neutralization of a rebel group on the border, he said. "The main goal of the exercise is to train for the joint elimination of a group of rebels on the border. This will be a serious exercise aimed at upgrading border protection," Putov said.
Putov visited Azerbaijan and Georgia last week to discuss preparations for and conduction of the trilateral exercises. Summing up results of working meetings of November 14-16, Putov and chief-of-staff of the Georgian State Border Guard Department Colonel Kornely Salia signed a protocol on practical measures regarding the strengthening of joint border protection.
"The protocol deals with sharing data, holding joint reconnaissance, establishing communication and construction of engineering installations on the Russian-Georgian border, as well as with the upcoming joint exercises," Putov said.
According to him, the protocol is a development of accords reached by the Russian and Georgian presidents at the CIS summit in Chisinau and the Yerevan agreements of the Russian and Georgian border guard chiefs.
Putov refuted media reports that the protocol signed in Tbilisi allows Russian aviation to survey the Georgian air space and reserves a possibility for Russia to use border guard troops, aviation and artillery to destroy Chechen rebel gangs on the Georgian territory within 1km from the border.
"All reports of this kind do not correspond to reality. The protocol signed by me and Colonel Salia says nothing about it. Issues of this nature can only be settled on the highest political level," Putov said.