Abashidze Accuses Tbilisi of Incursion Attempt

Adjarian leader Aslan Abashidze dismissed on March 24, President Saakashvili’s accusation regarding recruiting the mercenaries as “ridiculous.”
 
“It is rather ridiculous to hear such accusations from the central authorities, but we have got accustomed to them,” Aslan Abashidze said in a live broadcast of the Adjara television late on March 24.
 
Earlier on March 24 President Saakashvili warned leader of the Adjarian Autonomy Aslan Abashidze against recruiting mercenaries.
 
The Adjarian leader called the President’s statement “a prelude to a new attack,” adding that a new attempt of armed incursion into Adjara is being prepared but the central authorities.
 
Aslan Abashidze called on the population to oppose such plans “to avoid break up of a conflict in Adjara similar to those that took place in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.” 
 
Commenting on the recent decree of the President of Georgia over annulment of diplomatic passports of high officials of Adjara, Aslan Abashidze said, that new Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili new nothing about the decision of the central authorities.
 
“We know that the new Foreign Minister knew nothing about it. She could not have approved this move of the central authorities,” the Adjarian leader said on March 24.
 
According to the presidential decree, diplomatic passports of high officials of the Adjara Autonomous Republic, including Adjarian leader Aslan Abashidze, Mayor of Batumi Giorgi Abashidze and Interior Minister Jemal Gogitidze, were annulled.
 
Under the March 18 presidential decree the Foreign Ministry was also instructed to suspend distribution of passports, or prolongation of term of validity of passports for the citizens residing in the Adjara Autonomous Republic.