03 May 2004	Monday	12 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

TBILISI, May 2: Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili on Sunday gave the renegade leadership of the Black Sea Adjara region ten days to come to heel or face being ousted , in an ultimatum issued after the local chieftain blew up the bridges linking his province to the rest of Georgia.

With Adjara effectively severed from Georgia, there were fears that the escalating row between Georgia's central government and Adjaran leader Aslan Abashidze could suck the former Soviet republic into a violent conflict.

Speaking at a hastily-convened press conference, 36-year-old Saakashvili said he hoped for a "peaceful solution" to the row with Abashidze, but he did not explicitly rule out using force.

"Once again, and this time for the last time, I am giving ten days for Aslan Abashidze to submit to the constitution, stop the violations of the law and human rights, and start the process of disarmament," the 36-year-old Saakashvili told reporters.

"If in ten days we do not get this response, then the president will use his rights under the constitution and will raise the question of dissolving the local administrative structures."

Hinting at the possibility of military action, Saakashvili added that destroying bridges into Adjara would not keep Georgian troops out. "We do not live in the Stone Age. Our forces have been training so that they could, if necessary, enter Adjara from the sea," he said.

The crisis erupted earlier Sunday when Abashidze's security forces used explosives to destroy three road bridges linking Adjara to the neighbouring Georgian region. They also dismantled the only railway route into Adjara. -AFP