MOSCOW/TBILISI. Aug 21 (Interfax-AVN) - Georgian and Russian experts will meet in Tbilisi in September to discuss functioning terms of Russian military bases in the Georgian localities of Batumi and Akhalkalaki, Georgian Ambassador to Moscow Zurab Abashidze said on Thursday.
"Experts will prepare the leg of talks between full-scale delegations of the parties," Abashidze told reporters.
According to him, Georgia will once again raise the issue of international monitoring of Russia's compliance with obligations to the OSCE concerning the abolition of the Gudauta military base.
"Russia claims that it has shut down the base," the ambassador said.
Russia is reducing its military contingent in Georgia in compliance with decisions of the OSCE's 1999 summit in Istanbul. Russia maintains that the withdrawal of its bases from Batumi and Akhalkalaki will take at least 11 years, but Georgia insists that it must be done in three years.
Georgian Foreign Minister Irakly Menagarishvili told Interfax-AVN on Wednesday that "an enormous work" must be done to implement the Istanbul summit agreements on Russian bases withdrawal from the country.
"Russia has not yet complied with quite a large share of the obligations it assumed," Menagarishvili said.
"The Georgian position at the upcoming talks will be constructive and principled," he stressed.