Oct 31, 2007

Abkhazia: Worries Over Georgian Military Buildup


The Abkhaz president has expressed his concerns to a UN official about evidence of increasing military spending by Georgia, fearing that it represents the intention of Georgia to take imminent military action against Abkhazia.

The Abkhaz president has expressed his concerns to a UN official about evidence of increasing military spending by Georgia, fearing that it represents the intention of Georgia to take imminent military action against Abkhazia.

Below is an article published by The Journal of Turkish Weekly:

Abkhazia is concerned about headlong militarization of Georgia, Abkhaz President Sergey Bagapsh announced at a meeting with UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Georgia Jean Arnault.

As a REGNUM correspondent was told by presidential spokesman Kristian Bzhania, at the meeting, Bagapsh informed the UN official on “reliable evidence of significant growth of the amount of weapons and military equipment bought by Georgia.” “In particular, Georgia is buying powerful multiple launch rocket systems,” Bagapsh said. […] “We assess Georgia’s actions as preparations of the official Tbilisi to a large-scale military operation,” Bagapsh said.

The Abkhaz president expressed concern with the fact that international institutions being involved in the conflict settlement showed no response to the “dangerous trends.” Abkhazia called for all the parties to influence the Georgian side. […] “Such way of developments will not promote the conflict settlement anyhow,” Bagapsh concluded.

In his turn, Jean Arnault proposed to discuss issues connected with independent monitoring of the conflict zones in order to alleviate concern regarding breach of the cease-fire.