Hundreds of ethnic Georgians confronted Russian peacekeeping forces in the breakaway region of South Ossetia Thursday, throwing paint and gasoline on them and forcing them to stop blocking a road project, officials said.
Popularity: 14% [?]
June 29, 2007Georgian police said they detained two Russian peacekeepers in the conflict zone with breakaway South Ossetia, but commanders of the peacekeeping forces have denied the report.
Popularity: 1% [?]
December 5, 2006The U.S. Secret Service is working with police in the former Soviet republic of Georgia to investigate an international counterfeiting operation that produces fake $100 bills that have been seized in the United States and Israel, the Washington Post is quoted by Reuters news agency.
Popularity: 1% [?]
November 28, 2006South Ossetia and North Ossetia will eventually unite within Russia’s borders, South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity told a Monday press conference in Moscow.
Popularity: 1% [?]
November 21, 2006Mikhail Saakashvili on Tuesday rejected Russia’s accusations that his country was preparing for the forceful seizure of the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, accusing Moscow of fueling disputes in the region based on its old territorial claims, AP reports.
Popularity: 2% [?]
November 15, 2006The Sunday referendum in South Ossetia has taken place with the information support of the Russian authorities, the Interfax news agency reported quoting a statement by the Georgian Interior Ministry.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Voters in Georgia’s breakaway Republic of South Ossetia will head to the polls on November 12 to choose a new president and to participate in a referendum on the unrecognized republic’s independent status, RFE/RL reports.
Popularity: 2% [?]
The United States rejects an independence referendum planned for Sunday in the separatist South Ossetia region of Georgia, Reuters news agency reported quoting an official State Department statement.
Popularity: 1% [?]
November 9, 2006Police in the South Ossetia region killed four Georgian “saboteurs†on Tuesday, a South Ossetian minister said, raising tension days before Ossetians vote in an independence referendum, the Reuters news agency reported.
South Ossetia threw off Georgian rule in fighting during the early 1990s. A ceasefire was signed but violence has simmered between the two sides, especially since the fiery pro-Western Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili was elected in 2004.
“A group of Georgian saboteurs has been eliminated this morning,†South Ossetia’s emergency minister, Boris Chochiev, told Reuters. He did not give any details about who the men were working for or what they were doing.
“According to preliminary reports there were four of them. All of them have been killed.â€
Georgian authorities said they had no information about any of their police or military being killed.
Last month a helicopter carrying Georgia’s defence minister was hit by gunfire as it flew over South Ossetia and a shoot out between police killed three South Ossetians and one Georgian.
Popularity: 1% [?]
October 31, 2006“We are asking the Georgians and the Russians to do everything they can to de-escalate the tensions,†Rice told reporters traveling with her from Beijing to Moscow.
Rice, who arrived in Russia on a one-day visit, said she was very concerned about persistent tensions between Tbilisi and Moscow and especially the “frozen conflicts†of breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
“I think we have been clear with both sides that cooler heads need to prevail here,†said Rice, pledging to raise the issue in her meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
The latest crisis between the two former Soviet states stemmed from Georgia’s brief detention of four Russian servicemen on suspicion of espionage.
They were released after international mediation but Russia cut sea, air rail and postal links and ordered the deportation of hundreds of Georgians it said were illegal immigrants.
Putin on Friday told European Union leaders in Finland that Georgia was risking bloodshed by seeking to regain control over the regions by military means.
“The rhetoric really needs to be lowered,†Rice said. “I would be especially concerned that there would be no rhetoric which might encourage activity —- military, provocative activity in these frozen conflicts of Abkhazia or South Ossetia.â€
She added: “I think that (military action) is the kind of problem that could get out of control. I will talk to the Russians about that problem.â€
Popularity: 2% [?]
October 23, 2006
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