TBILISI. July 24 (Interfax-AVN) - The Georgian authorities believe that servicemen of the CIS Collective Peacekeeping Forces in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict zone are to ensure security of international monitoring of the former 50th Russian military base in Abkhazia's Gudauta.
"Units of the Collective Peacekeeping Forces manned with Russian servicemen are to ensure safe work of the international inspection team that will check Russia's compliance with the obligations to close down the Gudauta military base that were assumed at the OSCE summit in Istanbul in 1999," Georgian Foreign Minister Irakly Menagarishvili told Interfax-Military News Agency on Thursday.
Menagarishvili was asked to comment on the Russian Foreign Ministry's statement proclaiming readiness to ensure security of the base's monitoring.
"Under earlier documents, the abolition of the Gudauta base is take place in absolute transparency conditions, however, visits of Georgian representatives to the base have been impossible because it is the conflict zone," the minister said.
"It is necessary to get to the base in order to inspect it, and this is a problem because the conflict zone is not controlled by Georgia's central government," he noted.
According to Menagarishvili, "the monitoring will finally become possible if Russian peacekeepers deal with security issues."
Russia announced the abolition of the Gudauta base both de jure and de facto back in November 2001. Georgia demands international monitoring of the base to confirm that it has indeed been closed down.