TBILISI. Dec 8 (Interfax-AVN) - Georgia has called for an extension of the mandate of the Organization for Security and Cooperation of Europe's observers working on the Chechen, Ingush and Dagestani sections of the border with Russia, Kornely Salia, chief-of-staff of the Georgian Interior Ministry's border guard department, said on Wednesday.
The current mandate expires in 2004.
"It is necessary to continue this monitoring mission as Russian representatives have again started to speak about certain movements by Chechen guerrillas across the border," Salia told Interfax-Military News Agency
"The presence of international observers is crucial to avoiding various provocative acts," Salia said.
"Unbiased information coming from OSCE observers on the one hand and improving contacts with Russian colleagues on the other hand will provide for more reliable border protection," Salia stressed.
The OSCE mission consists of 144 people in summer and 85 people in winter. Up to 30 countries have representatives taking part in this monitoring.
OSCE border observers are monitoring the 280-km strap of the Russian-Georgian border from the Georgian side. Monitoring parties use skis, helicopters or cars or go unmounted depending on the weather. They operate both in the daytime and at night.
The observers are not armed and do not have police or border guard functions. They are escorted by doctors and security guards provided by the Georgian border guard department.
Monitoring data is regularly supplied to the OSCE headquarters in Vienna. The observers have been monitoring the Chechen section since 2000, the Ingush section since 2001, and the Dagestani section since 2002.
"The OSCE mission on the Russian-Georgian border has attained its goals," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.
Border guard interaction between Russia and Georgia has improved considerably, Lavrov told reporters after a meeting with his Georgian counterpart Salome Zourabichvili in Sofia. Uniformed agencies of the two countries, including the border guard services, are cooperating to rule out illegal border crossing, he said.
"We believe that the measures taken since the mission's establishment already allow us to attain our goals without using such a tool as the OSCE mission," Lavrov stressed.