RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 4, No. 208, Part I, 26 October 2000
GEORGIAN, RUSSIAN OFFICIALS DISAGREE OVER WHEREABOUTS OF
CHECHEN FIGHTERS... Georgian Defense Minister Davit Tevzadze
told journalists in Tbilisi on 25 October that the Chechen
fighters who refused to surrender to Georgian troops who
intercepted them on 20 October have now left Georgia,
Interfax reported. Chief of General Staff Djoni
Pirtskhalaishvili, for his part, denied that the fighters
included Chechen field commander Ruslan Gelaev. But Russian
Federal Border Guards commander Lieutenant-General Yevgenii
Bolkhovitin said on 25 October that his men had not
registered the passage of any Chechens from Georgia into
Ingushetia. And on 26 October, the Russian Federal Border
Guard Service said a group of Chechens had attempted to cross
that border the previous evening but had retreated into
Georgian territory after Russian border guards subjected them
to artillery fire, ITAR-TASS reported. LF
...AS RUSSIA PROPOSES DEPLOYING MORE OSCE OBSERVERS ON
GEORGIAN BORDER. Speaking in Moscow on 25 October,
Bolkhovitin's deputy, Lieutenant-General Aleksandr Manilov,
proposed that the OSCE should deploy observers along the
border between Georgia and Ingushetia, Caucasus Press
reported. The OSCE deployed some 40 observers along the
Georgian-Chechen border earlier this year (see "RFE/RL
Newsline," 21 February 2000). LF
Copyright (c) 2000. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
http://www.rferl.org
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