SUKHUMI. June 5 (Interfax-AVN) - Sergei Shamba, foreign minister of the unrecognized Republic of Abkhazia, has denounced the abduction of UN military observers in the Kodori Gorge.
"The abduction comes through the inability of the Abkhaz authorities to take the territory under administrative and judicial control. The Georgian authorities, which encourage and support criminals in the upper part of the Kodori Gorge, hamper this," Shamba told Interfax on Thursday.
Unidentified men took hostage four UN military observers patrolling the Kodori Gorge on Thursday morning. There is preliminary information that two hostages are citizens of Germany, and two others, a driver and a translator, are residents of Abkhazia.
Georgian presidential representative in the Kodori Gorge Emzar Kvitsiani said that it had been planed to sign an agreement on refugee's return to the lower part of the Kodori Gorge on Thursday. "It seems someone does not want peace in the conflict zone," Kvitsiani said.
Georgia sent military units to the Kodori Gorge in violation of the Moscow agreement on cease-fire and separation of forces of May 14, 1994, Shamba said.
In addition, the Georgian authorities do not allow the Russian peacekeepers to have a permanent post in the gorge, which enables armed groups to act freely, the minister noted.