TBILISI/MOSCOW. April 2 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian-Georgian negotiations on the return of Chechen refugees staying in the Pankisi gorge and other Georgian territories will resume in the near future.
"In accordance with a recent accord between security councils secretaries of our countries, a delegation of the Russian Emergencies Ministry will arrive in Tbilisi for the resumption of the negotiations on the return of Chechen refugees. The exact date of the delegation's arrival is not yet determined," a source in the Georgian Foreign Ministry told Interfax-Military News Agency on Wednesday.
Chief of the Russian ministry's international cooperation department Valery Shuikov told Interfax-AVN that "the issue is under consideration."
The source said that the parties to the talks will primarily approve lists of refugees and find out how many of them are ready to return and where they are going to live.
"The majority of Chechen refugees officially registered on the Georgian territory say that they are ready to return if their security is guaranteed, some want to leave for third countries, and there are those who want to stay in Georgia," the source noted.
According to him, "it is not ruled out that during the visit of the Russian delegation a decision will be made on the fate of the Chechens who were involved in resistance to federal troops, later stopped it and are now staying in Georgia as refugees."
The source stressed that "Georgian secret services have learned that that Chechen field commanders unsuccessfully attempt to recruit reinforcements for their formations among refugees."
This information was confirmed by the command of the unified federal troops group in the North Caucasus. In particular, the headquarters said that some 100 Chechen guerillas located in Georgia refused to be involved in gangs of Chechen warlord Ruslan Gelayev. Gelayev's emissaries tried to bring refugees back to Chechnya with arms and involve them in combating federal forces.
Chechen refugees started to move to Georgia in 1999. Their number was 8,000 at the time. Georgian migration services say that now the number decreased two times to 4,000.