TBILISI. Aug 27 (Interfax-AVN) - Tbilisi insists that Russia remove its military bases from Georgia as soon as possible, a senior member of the Georgian parliament said on Tuesday.
"Moscow must meet the commitments to withdraw its bases from Georgia that it made within the framework of the Istanbul summit of the OSCE in 1999," Irakly Batiashvili said.
Batiashvili, who heads the parliamentary defense and national security committee, and a group of Georgian journalists visited the Russian base at Akhalkalaki on Tuesday.
"The base at Akhalkalaki is of certain interest to Russia but it has lost its strategic significance due to new realities," he said.
"The Georgian authorities will not go back on their principle that the Russian military bases in Akhalkalaki and Batumi must be closed down within the shortest time possible."
Georgia is insisting the two bases be shut down within the next three years while Russia claims the process cannot take less than 11 years.
Georgian Foreign Minister Irakly Menagarishvili told Interfax that the two countries will hold expert-level talks on the closure of the bases next month.
He said "a tremendous amount of work" needs to be done to have the bases removed.
"Russia hasn't fulfilled a fairly large part of the commitments it has made," he said. "The Georgian position at the forthcoming negotiations will be constructive and based on principles."