GEORGIA: Georgia claims it has regained control over a remote gorge close to the breakway region of Abkhazia

Georgia on Thursday (July 27) took full control over a remote gorge where its troops battled a rebellious militia leader in an operation that has triggered fears of a wider regional conflict. One woman was killed in the battle and local strongman Emzar Kvitsiani, whose refusal to obey Tbilisi's orders had prompted the government to send troops to the Kodori gorge, escaped, the presidential chief of staff said. Kvitsiani's militia had controlled one stretch of the gorge -- a gateway to the breakaway Black Sea region of Abkhazia -- while the southern half was controlled by Abkhaz separatists under a 1994 deal which ended a bloody war. "At this moment we can say that the anti-criminal police operation is successfully finished. Villages are freed from criminal presence. Right now the search operation is going on for the few criminal that are hiding in the woods. We will get them, it's just a matter of time," Chief of Staff Georgy Arveladze told Reuters in Tbilisi. Arveladze said soldiers killed one woman in a skirmish with rebels, but blamed her death on Kvitsiani supporters. Otherwise, Arveladze reiterated the official figure of losses in the operation, saying two servicemen were lightly wounded. Georgian media suggest the real figure is higher. The clashes in the gorge -- one of the routes Georgian troops took in a failed attempt to re-establish control over Abkhazia in 1992-93 -- have alarmed Abkhaz separatists, suspicious of any Tbilisi military build-up in the area. But breakaway leaders in Abkhazia, echoed by their Russian allies, say Tbilisi could use the operation to concentrate forces in the gorge and then use it as a springboard for a strike to regain control of the province. "They are creating a bridgehead to move towards (Abkhaz capital) Sukhumi along the shortest track," Interfax news agency quoted Lieutenant-General Valery Yevnevich, head of Russia's peacekeepers in the region, as saying. Georgia has promised its operation against Kvitsiani will not spill over into Abkhazia. Abkhaz President Sergei Bagapsh has said his forces, concentrated in the separatist-controlled part of the gorge, were under orders to open fire if Georgian troops "cross the border even by one yard". Russia, its peacekeepers in the area on high alert, has warned Georgia against violating the 1994 ceasefire deal. Georgia has responded by accusing Russia of trying to annex its territory and demanding Russia's peacekeepers leave. Georgia's relations with Russia have grown hostile under pro-Western President Mikhail Saakashvili, who wants to end Georgia's dependence on Moscow and join NATO.

ITN Source | July 28, 2006

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