12 June 2004 21:50
Tbilisi says military brought to South Ossetia from Russia
TBILISI/TSKHINVALI. June 12 (Interfax) - About 150 vehicles carrying military personnel, weapons, and ammunition
entered South Ossetia from Russia last night, Chairman of the Georgian parliamentary defense and national security
committee Givi Targamadze told the press in Tbilisi on Saturday.
"Military hardware, particularly several armored vehicles and anti- aircraft guns, were also brought to South
Ossetia, and some of them were deployed to the area where the Russian peacekeeping forces are stationed,"
Targamadze said.
He claimed about 120 people who came together with the convoy are residents of North Ossetia.
"The Russian authorities, the U.S. administration, and all international organizations have already been
informed about this, and we are expecting international response," he said.
Meanwhile, President Eduard Kokoity of South Ossetia categorically denied the reports about the bringing of military
forces to the republic in a Saturday interview with Interfax. "This is just another example of provocation by the
Georgian authorities, which is aimed at destabilizing the situation in the region," Kokoity said.
Kokoity had told Interfax on Friday night that the South Ossetian security and law enforcement agencies were
"put on alert." He said Tskhinvali learned about a plan according to which about a thousand of Georgians, who
had left South Ossetia during an armed conflict in the early 1990s, would try to break through checkpoints barring
entrance to South Ossetia on foot on Saturday. [GG EUROPE ASIA EEU EMRG VIO] va < >
[Interfax] |
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