TSKHINVALI. Aug 31 (Interfax-AVN) - Denunciation of the Dagomys agreement on Georgian-Ossetian settlement may result in the outbreak of a new armed conflict in the region, Major General Svyatoslav Nabzdorov, commander of the Joint Peacekeeping Forces in the conflict zone, said on Tuesday.
"The situation in the conflict zone remains tense and gives no grounds for abandoning the use of the mixed Georgian-Ossetian- Russian peacekeeping forces in the region," Nabzdorov told Interfax-Military News Agency.
Several Georgian parliament members have announced their intention to begin collecting deputies' signatures in order to raise the question of denouncing the Dagomys agreement on the Georgian-Ossetian settlement in parliament. The Dagomys agreement, signed by Georgia and Russia in the summer of 1992, envisaged the entry of peacekeeping forces into the conflict region, a cease fire in the conflict zone and the creation of a structure that would aid the settling of the conflict - the Joint Control Commission, which includes representatives of Georgia, Russia, South and North Ossetia.
"Peacekeepers have to work very tense today to ensure security in the region," Nabzdorov went on.
"We have a lot of mine-clearance work. A lot of mines and booby traps remain in the conflict zone after the mid-August events, and our sappers are currently searching for mines and doing mine clearance in several districts of South Ossetia," the commander said, commenting on reports that two civilians touched off a mine near the village of Java.
Military observers of the Joint Peacekeeping Force also had to get involved in the settlement of the hostage-taking incident in the village of Eredvi early on Tuesday, Nabzdorov said.
"It is good that we managed to settle the incident peacefully," he stressed.
Earlier reports said that three buses with Ossetians were stopped in the Georgian village of Eredvi early on Tuesday. South Ossetian Interior Minister Robert Guliyev told Interfax that Eredvi residents took nine men of Ossetian origin hostage. Five of them were later delivered to Tskhinvali's republican hospital with serious injuries.
The police of the Shida-Kartli region told Interfax that Eredvi residents detained three buses carrying residents of Ossetian villages in response to the abduction of Soso Maisuradze in the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone on Monday, and suggested the exchange.