MOSCOW. Feb 12 (Interfax-AVN) - The Abkhaz authorities have sent an official proposal to the UN mission in Georgia to set up a joint post comprising the CIS Collective Peacekeeping Force in the zone of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict and UN observers.
"This should be done before the snow in the mountains begins melting," Sergei Shamba, foreign minister of Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia, told Interfax-Military News Agency on Thursday.
"Without this patrol, real demilitarization of the Kodori Gorge, required by the Moscow agreement, is impossible," Shamba said.
The Moscow agreement, signed by the conflicting parties in 1994, requires the withdrawal of Georgia's and Abkhazia's regular units from the Kodori Gorge.
"Meanwhile, a small contingent of Georgian border guards and a large number of reserve forces from the Georgian national guard still remain in the upper part of the Kodori Gorge (Abkhazia's only district controlled by the Georgian authorities - Interfax- AVN)," Shamba said.
Therefore, Abkhazia is being forced to draw its forces to the Kodori Gorge, he went on. "Moreover, there are cases of mine planting by both parties," he said.
Shamba announced that Abkhazia had also urged the UN mission to restart regular patrolling of the Kodori Gorge by UN military observers. Patrolling was suspended after unidentified assailants kidnapped four UN workers in the Kodori Gorge in June 2003.