Georgia rebel region vows to resist Tbilisi moves
Reuters, Moscow
Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia yesterday said it reserved the right to use force to stop Tbilisi setting up a local government headquarters in the Black Sea region, Interfax news agency reported.The separatists are in an armed standoff with government forces. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has said he will move Abkhazia's pro-Tbilisi government in exile, which fled in the 1990s, into a remote part of the region now controlled by Georgians. "We reserve the right to prevent the setting up of this puppet government in the Kodori gorge. To achieve this, I will not exclude any means: both diplomatic and military," Interfax quoted separatist leader Sergei Bagapsh as saying. Saakashvili has said he wants to restore Tbilisi's control over Abkhazia, which it lost in a separatist war in the 1990s. He has said he will use only peaceful means. The separatists, backed by Moscow, suspect Tbilisi of encroaching on their territory with the aim of launching a military attack. Interfax also quoted Bagapsh as saying that the separatist armed forces had been put on heightened alert.
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