Tbilisi/Agency Caucasus – President Sergei Bagapsh of Abkhazia ordered his Armed Forces to get prepared for the war after the tension soared around South Ossetia.
After the Georgian and Osset forces exhanged gunfire on Friday, Bagapsh summoned the Security Council and ordered the Minister of Defense to prepare the Abkhaz troops deployed in eastern Abkhazia for a possible war.
The Abkhaz leader keeps in touch with his South Ossetian leader so that prompt action can be taken in case something unexpected happens in South Ossetia.
"The tension swells in South Ossetia, leading women and children to be sent away from the region. Georgia installs heavy gun machines, firearms and the ‘Grad’ system along the border," said Bagapsh.
He also spoke of Sukhum’s decision not to join a German-backed meeting that the Group of Friends of the United Nations (UN) on Georgia arranged but failed to hold in Berlin on July 30-31. "The Abkhaz administration will hold negotiations with neither Georgia nor the UN Secretary-General’s Group of Friends while Georgia’s genocidal policies remain atop its list of priorities. We will revise our decision only if the situation in South Ossetia returns to normality."
Georgia’s Group of Friends consists of Germany, the United States of America (USA), Britain and Russia. The Group wants to hold negotiations with Abkhazia and Georgia on Berlin’s three-stage plan of resolution.
ÖZ/FT
