A Georgian policeman was killed on Sunday in a shootout near the Abkhazia rebel region, as the head of an EU observer mission seeking to calm tensions arrived in the country.
The flare-up, the second killing of a Georgian policeman on the de facto Abkhaz border in just over a week, highlighted instability in Georgia after the EU brokered a peace plan between Tbilisi and Moscow following last month’s conflict.
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“One Georgian policeman was killed and two were wounded in Khurcha as a result of sniper fire from positions controlled by Abkhaz separatists,” said interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili, referring to a village in the coastal district of Zugdidi near Abkhazia.
“The Georgian side briefly returned fire from automatic weapons as one of our policemen had been killed ... The shootout with automatic weapons between Abkhaz militia and Georgian police lasted several minutes,” he said.
The announcement was denied by an official for the adjoining Abkhaz district, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.
“There was no firing and couldn’t have been” by Abhkaz forces, said the official, Ruslan Kishmariya.
HARD TO SAY
“There are Abkhaz border guard and Russian peacekeeping posts opposite Khurcha village. At these posts firing was heard right within the village but what’s happening there is hard to say,” he said.
Located on the Black Sea coast, Abkhazia is one of two Georgian rebel regions backed by Russia.
Last month Russia and Georgia fought a brief war centred on the other rebel region, South Ossetia.
Hostilities also took place around Abkhazia. Moscow has since recognized both rebel regions as independent, drawing Western condemnation.
Russian forces remain posted on either side of the de facto Abkhaz border.
A Georgian policeman was fatally shot from an Abkhaz checkpoint on Sept. 13, the day Russian forces made a partial pull-back from positions deeper inside Georgia.
Under the EU-brokered peace plan, Russian forces are due by the middle of next month to make a further pull-back to the positions they held prior to the outbreak of last month’s hostilities.
On Saturday the head of an EU observer mission arrived in Georgia to prepare the ground for at least 200 EU observers that are to be deployed by Oct. 1 — a condition of the Russian pullback.
The mission head, German diplomat Hansjoerg Haber, was expected to meet Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze yesterday, with substantial numbers of observers set to arrive early in the week, officials said.
Most of the EU’s 27 member states are expected to contribute personnel to the mission, which has an initial duration of 12 months.
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