MOSCOW. June 28 (Interfax-AVN) - Tensions have escalated in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone, Mixed Peacekeeping Force Commander Major General Svyatoslav Nabzdorov told Interfax- Military News Agency on Monday.
"The authorities of the unrecognized Republic of South Ossetia respond to Georgia's open demonstration of force with equally open actions," he said.
"For instance, the South Ossetian Interior Ministry placed police posts at entrance points into the republic from the side of Georgia and near Tamarasheni (the largest ethnic Georgian village near Tskhinvali - Interfax-AVN) after Georgian police posts had been illegally placed in the conflict zone," he said.
"A South Ossetian police post is several meters away from a Georgian post, and there are 15 servicemen on each side, which is fraught with the use of force, as political relations are very tense," the commander said.
"The Tskhinvali authorities explain their actions by saying that the Georgian party detains all automobiles heading for the republic and out of it under the pretext of an anti-smuggling operation, which is fraught with an armed conflict taking into account tense political relations," Nabzdorov noted.
"Mutual force demonstration actions by the conflicting parties cannot result in anything good, and that is why I have prepared a report assessing the situation in the conflict zone. I will deliver it at the session of the Mixed Control Commission on conflict settlement, which will take place in Moscow from June 30 to July 1," the commander concluded.
South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which are still de jure provinces of Georgia, became de facto independent in the 1990s. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has continuously called on South Ossetian and Abkhaz residents to begin negotiations on reunification. Abkhazia and South Ossetia have rejected Tbilisi's approaches, but Saakashvili has promised that he will regain control over the two provinces.