GEORGIA: Russians are stuck in Tbilisi airport as crisis between Georgia and Russia continues

More than two hundred Russians found themselves stuck at Tbilisi's airport on Monday (October 9), after Georgian President Saakashvili prohibited the landing of Russian cargo planes in the country. Two Russian freight aircraft with 270 deported Georgians were due to land in Tbilisi but Saakashvili said he was denying such flights permission to enter Georgian air space until Russia laid on passenger aircraft instead. "Georgian authorities announced two hours ago that for technical reasons they can not accept aircraft from Moscow," said Valeri Vasiliyev, the acting Russian consul in Tbilisi. The row about the planes comes as the political crisis between Russia and Georgia continues. Last Friday (October 6) Russia deported 180 Georgians over alleged immigration irregularities, and retrieved 180 Russians from Tbilisi. The crisis started when Georgia arrested four Russian officers on spying charges. Outraged Moscow reacted with a range of punitive measures, including the blocking of all traffic from and to Georgia. Georgia has already handed the four men back to Moscow, but the Kremlin has not softened its sanctions that affect Georgians form all bounds of life. Many Georgians say they feel witch-hunted by Russian authorities, a complaint not echoed by Russians in Georgia. "No, I don't think it it dangerous to be here. On the contrary, it is dangerous for Georgians to be in Moscow, but nothing is threatening Russian in Tbilisi," said a Russian woman at the airport. Many passengers affected by the cancellations were forced to to buy tickets via other destinations to travel to Russia. President Saakashvili said he was considering filing a case against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights over what he called rights abuses against Georgians living in Russia. Critics of the Kremlin say economic sanctions imposed on Georgia over a spying row have now spilled over into a campaign of persecution directed against the hundreds of thousands of Georgians living in Russia. Moscow has severed rail, air and postal links with Georgia, stopped issuing visas and slapped new restrictions on Georgians living and working inRussia in response to the arrests. Moscow has ignored pressure from the European Union and the United States to call off its sanctions. It says it acted to try to halt a dangerous military build-up by Saakashvili that could ignite "frozen conflicts" between Tbilisi and the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, to which Moscow gives economic help. .

ITN Source | October 10, 2006

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