TBILISI. May 28 (Interfax-AVN) - Georgian Defense Minister Gela Bezhuashvili believes it essential to revise the mandate of the Collective Peacekeeping Force, deployed in the Georgian- Abkhazian conflict area.
"It is high time the mandate of Russian peacekeepers, deployed in Abkhazia, were revised," Bezhuashvili told Interfax- Military News Agency on Friday.
Noting that the Collective Peacekeeping Force will have been deployed in the conflict area for a decade by June, Bezhuashvili said that a decade before peacekeepers had played a positive part, separating the belligerent sides.
"The situation is not the same any longer, the mandate is obsolete, and not it is not wise to draw a borderline between Abkhazia and the rest of Georgia," Bezhuashvili emphasized.
He said he was sure that both Georgia and Russia would benefit from the revision of the mandate, aimed at providing assistance to refugees, returning, first and foremost, to the Abkhaz Gali District.
At the same time Bezhuashvili said that it was a must to establish an international administration in the Gali District in order to bring the situation back to normal.
"This step will be followed by a real reconciliation and economic development," he said.
A total of 97 Russian peacekeepers have been killed in the course of the peacekeeping operation in Abkhazia, conducted under the CIS auspices, while another 250 servicemen have been wounded.