On September 13, US Ambassador Richard Miles unexpectedly stated that "few international terrorists" are still present near Georgia's north-eastern mountainous Pankisi gorge at the Russian border. The statement was later denied by the spokesperson of the U.S. Department of State, but it caused confusion among the Georgian officials. Speaking at the joint news briefing with the Georgian Interior Minister Irakli Okruashvili on September 13, Richard Miles surprised the reporters by his critical remarks towards the Georgian government on Pankisi gorge issue.
Miles stated that there are "some arguments" with the Georgian side over this issue. "I don't want to get into that big argument here today, but the short answer is yes, there are still a few international terrorists in the vicinity of the Pankisi Gorge," Ambassador Miles said, while answering the journalist's question whether there are terrorists in Pankisi.
The U.S. Ambassador's statement dealt a diplomatic blow to the Georgian officials, which maintain that following the anti-criminal operation that started in 2002 the gorge was cleansed of the Chechen fighters and foreigners suspected of terrorism links. The sensitivity of Tbilisi to the statement increased in the light of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's announcements made earlier last week, in which he linked the North Ossetian hostage tragedy and Georgia. In the wake of this statement the Russian media speculated that one of the terrorist suspects, allegedly behind the hostage-taking in Beslan school, is hiding in Kodori gorge, which is the only territory of breakaway Abkhazia under the Georgian authorities' control, or in Pankisi. |