October 18, 2001	Thursday	Rajab 30, 1422

TBILISI, Oct 17: Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze accused Russia on Wednesday of violating Georgia’s air space in flying missions over its breakaway region of Abkhazia.

According to Tbilisi, six Russian Sukhoi Su-25 planes had flown over Georgia’s Kodori gorge, which lies on the “border” between Georgia and Abkhazia, and then leaving for Russia.

“It is surprising that the military would permit themselves such a thing after the constructive telephone conversation I’ve had with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday,” Shevardnadze told parliament.

Shevardnadze ordered Georgia’s Defense Minister David Tevzadze to investigate the incident on the ground in Kodori gorge.

The Russian defense ministry neither confirmed nor denied the report, saying only that it “had no information” relevant to the incident.

Tbilisi had earlier accused Russia of launching air strikes on the Georgian villages in the Kodori area where fierce fighting between Abkhaz troops and partisan guerrilla erupted earlier this month.

Fighting in Abkhazia continued Wednesday as Abkhaz security forces surrounded and attacked a group of Georgian and Chechen militants holed up near Russia’s border with the province, Abkhaz officials said.

The Abkhaz troops surrounded the group in a mountain pass and launched a series of ground and air attacks to eliminate it, Abkhazia’s deputy defense minister Garry Kupalba told AFP.

“A large number of militants were destroyed, judging by preliminary data,” Kupalba said, adding that Abkhaz troops were now tracking down scattered guerrilla groups.

Authorities in Russia’s region of Karachayevo-Cherkessia, which borders Abkhazia in that area, said any activists who tried to cross the Russian border would be “arrested or destroyed,” the ITAR-TASS news agency reported.

A group of some 100 fighters had headed north toward the Russian border, Abkhaz officials said earlier.

However, in order to cross into Russia the guerrillas would need to get through mountain passes which would be impassible due to early snows, local authorities said.

Hundreds of Georgian and ethnic Chechen guerrillas streamed into Abkhazia earlier this month, launching a major offensive on Abkhazia’s separatist forces.

Georgian partisans even claimed to have entered the separatist capital of Sukhumi, a report Abkhaz authorities categorically denied.

Abkhazia also accused Georgia of mounting a large-scale assault to bring the rebel province to heel.

Abkhazia claimed de facto independence from Georgia in 1993 after a war in the early 1990s in which the separatists were supported by Moscow. Russia sent a contingent of peacekeeping troops to the breakaway republic in 1994.—AFP