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Caucasus
Russers pull out of Kodori Gorge
2002-04-13
  • Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze said on Saturday that heavily armed Russian troops had begun to pull out of a remote gorge 24 hours after their sudden arrival sparked a diplomatic row. Dozens of Russians in blue peacekeeping helmets and body-armor landed by helicopter on Friday in the Kodori Gorge, a no-man's-land on the edge of Georgia's rebel Abkhazia region, without Tbilisi's permission. The move enraged Georgia's parliament and came just weeks before the planned arrival of U.S. military instructors on a training mission that has infuriated Moscow. But Shevardnadze told reporters that the Russians had now begun to withdraw, honoring a pledge that he negotiated with the Russian commander on Friday after flying out to the zone.

    Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Friday that Moscow had sent the unit to the gorge under an agreement brokered this month requiring Russian and U.N. observers to patrol there. Russia has around 1,500 peacekeepers monitoring a rickety cease-fire established after Abkhaz separatists evicted Georgian troops from the region, on the Black Sea, in a 1992-93 war. But Georgia says that deal made no mention of armed Russian troops. The chief U.N. military observer, Major-General Anis Bajwa, urged Russia to withdraw its troops immediately.
    Ouch. Clumsy.
    • Posted by:Fred Pruitt

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