On May 25, Chairman of the Federation Council Defense and Security Committee, Viktor Ozerov, will lead the Russian delegation to a session of NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly, which is to discuss the peacekeepers’ presence in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict zone, the ITAR-TASS news agency reports.
The protracted conflict between Georgia and its breakaway province erupted in 1991 after Abkhazia declared independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia cultivates close ties with the breakaway region, has granted citizenship to many residents and maintains peacekeepers in the area.
The delegates from the upper house of Russian parliament arrived in Abkhazia on Wednesday to “look into the activities of Russian peacekeepers in the conflict zone on site and to see for themselves how the Abkhazian people treat the peacekeepers,” the chairman of the Federation Council Defense and Security Committee, Viktor Ozerov, said.
The Abkhazian authorities want Russian peacekeepers to stay in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict zone, the Prime Minister of Georgia’s self-proclaimed republic, Alexander Ankvab, said at a meeting with Russia’s Federation Council delegation on Wednesday. “The [Russian] peacekeeping troops are the guarantors of peace and stability in Abkhazia,” Aleksander Ankvab was quoted as saying.
Peacekeeping operation in the region is carried out under the aegis of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/05/18/abkhazianato.shtml
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