MOSCOW. Nov 12 (Interfax-AVN) - Georgia will start an unscheduled rotation of its peacekeeping battalion within the Joint Peacekeeping Forces in South Ossetia on November 15, Erdni Natyrov, official of the force's press service, said on Friday.
"Under the documents signed earlier, rotation of peacekeeping units must not be held more often than once in six months, but the Georgian party has submitted a request for holding the rotation earlier, and the Joint Peacekeeping Forces command decided to do it a good grace," Natyrov told Interfax-Military News Agency.
"The Georgian party explained the necessity to hold the rotation by the fact that many Georgian peacekeepers are also involved in the operations in Kosovo and Iraq," he said.
Commenting on South Ossetia's objections to the unscheduled rotation in the Georgian battalion, Natyrov stressed that "it is the prerogative of the Joint Peacekeeping Forces commander to issue or not to issue the permission to replace peacekeepers."
All peacekeeping battalions within the forces will be replaced strictly as scheduled starting from next year, he said.
A spokesman for the General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces told Interfax-AVN that Georgia is planning to replace its peacekeepers in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone more often than once in six months.
"The explanation consists in the fact that Georgian specially trained units are in great demand, as they are also deployed in Iraq and Kosovo, as well as the fact that peacekeepers deployed in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict area have recently shouldered an increasing burden," he said.
South Ossetian Minister without Portfolio Boris Chochiyev, co-chairman of the Joint Control Commission, told Interfax-AVN that Tskhinvali was against such frequent replacements of Georgian peacekeepers, saying that the Georgian Defense Ministry was reconnoitering the area, trying to prepare for a possible invasion.