Russia and Georgia fail to reach compromise on security

Russian and Georgian experts have not come to a compromise yet on issues of security in the development of a draft agreement between the two countries on friendship, good neighborliness, cooperation and mutual security, an interview with Igor Savolsky published on the Russia Foreign Ministry Web site reported.

He said that the sides had coordinated the majority of the document. However, there were certain discrepancies. "Though there are not many discrepancies, they concern important security issues," he said.

"In the work on the draft of the agreement we proceeded from and recognized that it - the document - was aimed at the future and was intended to bring a strong legal base to the traditionally friendly Russia-Georgian relations," he said, "to give them the character of an original strategic partnership and all-around interaction.

"The intention of the agreement is to create conditions in which we can raise the bar on our cooperation with Georgia in political, economic and humanitarian areas as well as in the fight against terrorism."

According him, work on a draft of the agreement has been going on since December 2001 and during that time, four rounds of negotiations on development of the Russian and Georgian state commission project and more than 10 meetings between experts and the chairmen of the commissions have been held.