Moscow Warns Tbilisi On Inadmissibility Of Resuming Armed Conflict With Abkhazia

Moscow categorically warns Georgia on inadmissibility of resuming a large-scale armed conflict between Abkhazia and Georgia with the participation of international terrorists, says a statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday. The statement stresses that Russia insists on Georgia's unswerving observance of its obligations under the May 4, 1994 agreement on ceasing fire in the zone of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict and the relative resolutions of the United Nations' Security Council. The statement specially notes that "the source of tension is the criminal actions of an illegal armed formation, made up of mostly Chechen militants". According to Moscow, "with the connivance of the Georgian authorities" they were recently taken into Abkhazia from Georgia's Pankisi gorge, adjacent to Chechnya". "We have more than once drew the attention of the Georgian side to the need of taking undelayed and resolute measures towards ending the activities in Abkhazia of subversion-terrorist groups from the territory under Tbilisi's control. But our calls have not been heard", writes the Russian Foreign Ministry. Authors of this statement are convinced that the latest tragic developments in Abkhazia have been caused by "the continuation of the policy of pacification and tolerance, which the Georgian authorities are conducting with regard to Chechen terrorists, which have become entrenched in Georgia". The Russian Foreign Ministry is especially worried, says the statement, by the information on the aerial strikes on the Abkhaz territory on the night between October 8 and 9. The attempts by Tbilisi to shift the responsibility for these aerial strikes on the Russian military are "clumsy and groundless", writes the Russian Foreign Ministry. In trustworthy information, helicopters and aircraft of the attack aviation, which dealt these strikes, "appeared above Abkhazia from the side of Georgia", stresses the statement of the Russian foreign policy establishment".