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Georgia preparing for war, says Russia
Georgia does not want war in its breakaway South Ossetia region, President Mikhail Saakashvili said on Thursday after Russia said overnight clashes in the province showed Tbilisi was preparing for conflict.
- Reuters
- Published: 23:59 August 7, 2008
Gori: Georgia does not want war in its breakaway South Ossetia region, President Mikhail Saakashvili said on Thursday after Russia said overnight clashes in the province showed Tbilisi was preparing for conflict.
South Ossetia said 18 people had been wounded in what it described as heavy overnight artillery bombardment of the breakaway capital Tskhinvali and separatist-controlled villages.
Tbilisi said it was merely returning fire in a region where Georgian and Ossetian villages share an impoverished valley, under the tense guard of Georgian and Russian forces.
But near the town of Gori, at the very southern entrance to South Ossetia, 30 buses and seven military trucks filled with Georgian soldiers were waiting in convoy at a checkpoint yesterday.
The soldiers refused to comment when asked whether they were heading for the separatist region. Saakashvili said earlier that Tbilisi was not looking for war.
"Confrontation is not in Georgia's interests and I hope and I'm sure that the continuation of confrontation is not in Russia's interests either," he told reporters in Gori, where he visited two wounded Georgian peacekeepers.
Call for calm
The overnight clashes following fighting that began at the weekend when six people died. The United States and European Union have called for calm in the region where Russia and the West are vying for influence over vital energy transit routes.
South Ossetia and the Black Sea region of Abkhazia broke away from Georgian rule in wars in the early 1990s. They enjoy the financial and political backing of Russia, which has also given citizenship to the vast majority of locals.
But years of relative calm since the wars has broken down in recent months, with deadly bomb blasts in Abkhazia and skirmishes in Ossetia.
Russia's Interfax news agency quoted a senior South Ossetian official as saying the mechanised battalion of the Georgian army's 5th brigade was being loaded onto trailers and despatched to the conflict zone.
"When these detachments arrive, the Georgian side plans to launch large-scale military actions," said Anatoly Barankevich, secretary of the separatist Security Council.
Pro-Western Saakashvili, who took power in 2003, has promised Georgians he will restore control over the entire country, and has angered Russia by pledging to steer the ex-Soviet state towards membership of Nato.
Russia, which has peacekeepers in both rebel regions, has accused Georgia of gearing up for war and said it would not remain indifferent if the violence on its border escalated.
The United States urged the two sides to resume negotiations.
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