TBILISI. Feb 3 (Interfax-AVN) - OSCE observers who are to monitor the Dagestani section of the Russian-Georgia border will open their first post in the Kvareli village in the near future, the chief of the Lagodekhi department of the Georgian border guard troops, Colonel Malkhaz Chauchidze, told Interfax-Military News Agency on Monday.
He said that "the OSCE is planning to open four posts in February to hold the monitoring but the monitoring itself is supposed to start in May for several parts of the border are unavailable so far due to the thick snow."
According to Chauchidze, the OSCE monitoring area will include the 152km-long Dagestani border section, as well as the Lagodekhi, Azerbaijani and Ingush sections.
The monitoring envisages "assessment of the general situation on the border as well as registration of any movements," Chauchidze noted.
He stressed that Georgian border guards are to protect unarmed observers.
Chief-of-staff of the Georgian State Border Guard Department Colonel Kornely Salia earlier told Interfax-AVN that "Georgia attaches importance to the monitoring of problematic border segments by OSCE for it will help avoid Russia's accusations of rebels' transit".
Salia stressed that OSCE observers have monitored the 81km- long Chechen border section since 1999 and the 62km-long Ingush section since 2002.
An OSCE mission official told Interfax-AVN that the number of observers at monitoring sites will total 144 in summer and 111 in winter.
The OSCE made the decision to monitor the Dagestani strap in December last year.