MOSCOW/TBILISI. Nov 18 (Interfax-AVN) - The self-proclaimed republic of South Ossetia has announced that Georgia deployed 300 additional servicemen in the conflict zone under the pretext of peacekeepers' rotation.
"Yet after the accord on demilitarizing the region, achieved at the Sochi meeting between Georgian prime Minister Zurab Zhvania and South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity on November 5, Georgia deployed 300 servicemen in the conflict zone," South Ossetian Minister without Portfolio Boris Chochiyev told Interfax-Military News Agency by phone on Thursday.
"Thus, Georgia is violating accords on the strength of national peacekeeping contingents on the conflict zone. It has the right to send 500 servicemen to the Joint Peacekeeping Forces, but in fact, it maintains much more people in the conflict zone," Chochiyev said.
According to him, additional Georgian units are stationed in the village of Akhalsopeli just next to the Ossetian villages of the Lenonogorsk district (referred in Georgia as the Akhalgorsky district).
Chochiyev stressed that he will raise this issue at the next session of the Joint Control Commission, which he co-chairs on behalf of South Ossetia. The session is to take place in Vladikavkaz in Russia's internal republic of North Ossetia on Friday.
"In addition, we are planning to raise the issue of training Georgian reservists near the borders of the conflict zone, which creates additional tensions," he said.
Georgian Minister for Separatist Conflicts Giorgi Khaindrava told Interfax-AVN on Thursday that Tskhinvali's statements alleging that Georgia is violating the Sochi accords are groundless.
"The Georgian party has deployed no additional military in the conflict zone. We do train reservists, but it happens outside the conflict zone, and we have the right to it," said Khaindrava, who co-chairs the Joint Control Commission on behalf of Geprgoa.
According to him, at the next Joint Control Commission session Georgia will demand that armaments stop being transported to South Ossetia through the Roksky tunnel on the Ossetian section of the Russian-Georgian border.
"Armaments keep on coming through the Roksky tunnel, and this must be stopped. After all, it is time to clear out the definition of the conflict zone. So far it has been incorrectly interpreted as the zone controlled by the peacekeeping forces. We will insist on expanding the conflict zone to the Roksky tunnel, because this is important for demilitarizing the region," Khaindrava said.