Georgia and Ossetia Move In Troops
// Conflict
Tension is rising again in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone. After Georgian police arrested three Russian Defense Ministry officers and troops were moved into a Georgian village on the border with South Ossetia, Anatoly Barankevich, minister of defense of the unrecognized Republic of South Ossetia, put armed forces there on high alert. Peacekeepers began to prepare for possible conflicts. Speaker of the Russian State Duma Boris Gryzlov will dispatch parliamentarians to Tskhinvali to investigate the complex situations.
Yesterday, police were replaced by Defense Ministry troops and peacekeepers at the checkpoint on the way out of Tskhinvali. Local residents say that this is happening for the first time. An armed military vehicle is parked there too, gun pointing toward Gori.
Late Wednesday evening, ten trucks came from the direction of Gori into the village of Eredvi, on the Georgian-South Ossetian border. The North Ossetian Defense Ministry claims that they were carrying 250 members of the Gori Infantry Brigade. The truck left again the same night. It is not known where there were soldiers on them at that time.
“The introduction of Georgian armed forces into that territory is illegal,” stated peacekeepers press secretary Vladimir Ivanov. “The peacekeepers command center was not notified of any troop relocation.”
Georgian State Minister Georgy Khaindrava first said that the soldiers were brought in “to fill the quota of Georgian peacekeepers in South Ossetia” set under the 1992 agreement at 500 people. Supposedly the force had been short all that time. Later the state minister said that no troops were moved and he accused peacekeepers commander Marat Kulakhmetov of disinformation. He said that Kulakhmetov was invited to the village to see for himself that no troops were there, but the peacekeepers sent heavy Russian military equipment into the village instead and reported to the Russian Defense Ministry that Georgia was moving troops.
North Ossetian security took the news seriously. North Ossetian Defense Minister Barankevich put the armed forces on high alert and moved armored vehicles up to the border. Soldiers were placed in the trenches and blinds along the border. Gen. Barankevich told Kommersant that, if Georgia makes an aggressive move, “Those in the Caucasus Range will come to our aid. First the North Ossetians, because the Ossetians are one people. Then many of the peoples of the Caucasus will help us, the Abkhazians, for instance, with whom we have a treaty on military aid.”
The arrest of three Russian officers has added to the tension. Col. Vladimir Ivanov and Lieut. Col. Gennady Petrosyan of the Defense Ministry Main Infantry Command and military automobile inspector Valery Krok sent to South Ossetia to investigate the traffic accident that took place on February 1 in the village of Tkviavi. The collision of a military truck with a private Georgian car nearly led to war. Special forces from the Georgian Defense Ministry infantry brigade stationed in Gori were sent in, the peacekeepers brought in armored vehicles and the peacekeeping division in South Ossetia was put on alert. While the peacekeepers fault the Georgian driver in the incident, Georgian police impounded the peacekeepers' truck.
Officers Ivanov and Petrosyan were assigned to verify the actions of the peacekeepers and Krok to determine who was at fault in the accident. They were met by a peacekeepers vehicle when they arrived from North Ossetia, but they preferred to use their own car. In the village of Kurta, on the road to Tskhinvali, they were arrested Georgian military police because they had neither Georgian visas nor international passports. They were carrying only their Russian internal passports. That is common practice among military personnel and state officials, as well as regular citizens, because Georgian officials are reluctant to grant visas to travel there and it is poorly defined who is required to hold a visa. The officers spent one night in the local jail and then were transferred t the home of a local resident “under house arrest,” as Georgian State Minister Khaindrava explained. Their intended deportation has been complicated by the expectation that the peacekeepers will try to free the officers along the road and the fact that the Transcaucasian Trunk Road has been blocked by avalanches.
Speaker of the Russian State Duma Boris Gryzlov called the situation in South Ossetia alarming yesterday. He has decided to send a delegation there, but it is not clear how it would get to Tskhinvali, since the road from North Ossetia is blocked by snow and Russian parliament members are not accustomed to traveling through Tbilisi.
Olga Allenova, Tskhinvali; Georgy Dvali, Tbilisi
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 10, 2006
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