Georgia sends envoy to ease tensions with Russia

Copenhagen News.Net
Friday 16th May, 2008

Georgia has sent an envoy to Russia to ease tensions between two countries over its break-away region Abkhazia.

Georgian Reintegration Minister Temur Yakobashvili will meet Russian foreign ministry and State Duma officials to discuss ways to resolve the long-standing dispute over Abkhazia.

He will also discuss Tbilisi's reasoning behind involving the US and the European Union in the negotiation process and the decision to replace Russian peacekeepers with 'neutral' Western forces.

Tensions between Russia and Georgia plummeted to a new low following Moscow's decision to step up ties with Abkhazia and Georgia's other breakaway region South Ossetia.

On Wednesday, Georgia's foreign ministry announced its withdrawal from a 1995 CIS unified air defence agreement signed by a number of former Soviet republics, including Russia.

Russia, which has administered a peacekeeping contingent in Georgia's breakaway regions since bloody conflicts in the 1990s, dispatched additional troops to Abkhazia recently to deter what it called a planned Georgian military offensive.

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