TBILISI. Aug 12 (Interfax-AVN) - Georgian-Abkhaz talks on international security guarantees will take place in Tbilisi on September 15, Abkhaz Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba said on Tuesday.
The talks will involve representatives of the Group of Friends of the UN Secretary General on Georgia, namely the United States, Russia, France, Great Britain and Germany, Shamba told Interfax-Military News Agency.
He recalled that the decision to work out the security guarantees was made at the Yalta meeting on strengthening trust measures back in 2001.
"However the negotiating process was suspended after Ruslan Gelayev's raid from Pankisi to Abkhazia's Kodori gorge, and it is becoming possible to go back to this issue only now," Shamba said.
He noted that "guarantees of security and non-resumption of war imply elaboration of a set of political, military and economic measures, for which a permanent negotiating process is required."
During the talks, Sukhumi will once again raise the issue of demilitarization of the Kodori gorge, the only Abkhaz region controlled by Tbilisi after the military conflict of 1992-1993, Shamba said. "Contrary to earlier agreements, over 900 Georgian border guards and National Guard reservists are stationed there," he added.