TBILISI. June 11 (Interfax-AVN) - The Georgian government staged the kidnapping of UN military observers in Abkhazia's Kodori Gorge, former defense minister Tengiz Kitovani said on Wednesday.
"By doing so, Georgian leaders wanted to attract attention of the global community to the Abkhaz problem in the context of combating international terrorism," Kitovani told Interfax- Military News Agency.
"President Eduard Shevardnadze wanted to put the blame for the kidnapping on Al Qaeda members, of whose presence in the Kodori Gorge so much has been said in Tbilisi lately," Kitovani noted.
According to him, the four Russian peacekeepers that accompanied the UN observers were let go by terrorists "so that Russia would not deploy its troops in the Kodori Gorge."
"The Georgian president is doing his best to have U.S. troops deployed and that is why he is asking the U.S. for help against Al Qaeda that allegedly exists in Abkhazia," the former minister stressed.
He said he doubted that the U.S. would react to this request.
UN military observers Klaus Ott, Herbert Bauer and Henrik Soerensen, with their interpreter Levan Chikashua, were abducted in the Kodori Gorge on June 5. The four Russian peacekeepers accompanying them were disarmed and let go. After a few days, the abductors were surrounded in the upper section of the gorge. They released the hostages without ransom on Tuesday.