TBILISI, Oct 11: Georgia sent troops on Thursday to the Kodori gorge on the unofficial border with the breakaway republic of Abkhazia, drawing a warning from separatist leaders that the move was “a step towards war.”

Tensions between Tbilisi and Moscow rose further as Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze threatened to expel some 2,000 Russian peacekeepers from Abkhazia, accusing them of failing in their mission.

In response, the prime minister of the self-proclaimed Abkhaz republic Anri Dzhergenia said a withdrawal of the peacekeepers would be “unacceptable because they are the main guarantors of peace in the region,” the Interfax news agency reported.

Abkhaz president Vladislav Ardzinba wrote to Russian President Vladimir Putin asking him to take “immediate steps to avoid a large-scale war in the region” and to “end the Georgian policy of state terrorism,” the agency added.

Abkhazia claimed de-facto independence from the rest of Georgia in 1993 after a war in the early 1990s in which the separatists were supported by Moscow.

Announcing the troop deployment, Defence Minister David Tevzadze said Georgia’s duty was “to ensure the safety of our people and to prevent incidents like those that happened two days ago” — a reference to air strikes by unmarked planes that pounded the mountainous area Tuesday.

The border between Georgian government-controlled territory and the breakaway republic has been policed since 1994 by peacekeepers from Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose grouping of ex-Soviet republics.

However, Shevardnadze warned Thursday that the Russians “have not fulfilled their mission, and if parliament decides to expel them from the conflict zone, I will do everything I can to implement the decision.”

Tbilisi has consistently accused Moscow of siding with the separatists, while Russia accuses Georgia of allowing Chechen rebels to use its territory as a base and supply route.

Earlier this week, both Abkhazia and Georgia said their territories had been bombed by planes and helicopters in the incident, details of which remain obscure.

Abkhazian spokesmen blamed Georgia, while Tbilisi accused Russian military forces of launching air raids against Georgian villages near the sensitive border region.

Defence ministry officials confirmed to AFP that the troops had already left for the gorge.

Astamur Tanya, a senior aide to Abkhaz separatist president Vladislav Ardzinba, warned however that the move could presage heavy fighting.

“Georgia is attempting to send up to 500 men as reinforcements to the Kodor gorge,” he said. Tevzadze’s statement was “an attempt to legitimise the activities of terrorists operating on Abkhazian territory.”

The move was “a step towards the start of full-scale military operations, a step towards war,” Tanya added.—AFP