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#36 - JRL 2006-191 - JRL Home
Senior Russian Parliamentarians Say Peacekeepers Should Remain in Georgia

MOSCOW. Aug 22 (Interfax) - Senior members of Russia's upper house of parliament, in interviews with Interfax, slammed U.S. Senator Richard Lugar's point that Russia should withdraw its peacekeepers from the Georgian breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

"There is no reason to withdraw our peacekeepers from the (Georgian-Abkhaz) conflict zone, and this is out of the question now despite any demand from the Georgian side, least of all demands from an American senator," said Vadim Gustov, head of the Federation Council's Committee for the Commonwealth of Independent States.

A while ago, both Georgia and Abkhazia asked the Commonwealth of Independent States to station up to 3,000 peacekeepers in Abkhazia, Gustov said. "This means that both sides showed an initiative purely to prevent a civil war there. The same goes for South Ossetia," he said.

Viktor Ozerov, head of the Council's Defense and Security Committee, said the Russian peacekeepers were today the only guarantee of security in the two conflict zones.

"This applies to the security of Georgia itself as well, and the withdrawal of our peacekeepers would mean that the negotiation process was being replaced by an armed confrontation," Ozerov said.

Moreover, both Abkhazia and South Ossetia are better prepared for war now than before, and so fighting the two regions would not work for Georgia, he argued.