ON THE RUSSIAN MFA'S REPRESENTATION TO GEORGIAN AMBASSADOR TO MOSCOW ZURAB ABASHIDZE

Unofficial translation from Russian

PRESS RELEASE

On September 27 the Ambassador of Georgia to Moscow, Zurab Abashidze, was called into the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a resolute representation was made to him over the statements of Georgian officials that Georgia is purposefully getting rid of illegal armed bands and is not preventing them from returning to Russia because the struggle against those terrorists is exclusively "an internal affairs of Russia itself."

It was noted that that stand attests not only to the reluctance of Tbilisi to cooperate within the framework of the struggle of the international community against terrorists, but also to its actual connivance at armed bandits, for whom a "green corridor" to the territory of Russia is essentially opened.

Statements of this kind are being made just at a time when a band of Chechen gunmen and international terrorists has been routed in the area of the Ingush village of Galashki. The captured terrorists are currently giving evidence. There have been obtained new convincing proof that the band, which included foreign mercenaries, Georgian citizens among them, made its raid from the Pankisi Gorge of Georgia. The presence of gunmen on the Georgian-Russian border has also been noted by OSCE Mission observers.

Russia cannot agree with the assertion of Tbilisi that the territory of Georgia has been cleared of terrorists. Actually bandits and foreign mercenaries continue to infiltrate into Russia, including those who have arrived in Georgia legally on Georgian visas. Such practice is in obvious contradiction with the antiterrorist resolutions of the United Nations and once again shows the justification of the serious concerns which Russia recently brought to the notice of the world community.

In this situation the Russian side demands that Georgian authorities should take immediate action to put an end to terrorist incursions from Georgia into the territory of the Russian Federation.

September 27, 2002