Pro-Moscow Chechen Leader Offers “to Bring Order” in Pankisi

Vice-Premier of Chechnya Ramzan Kadirov has offered the Georgian authorities, as he put it, help in restoring order in the Pankisi gorge, which is in the north-eastern part of Georgia, near the Russian border.

Ramzan Kadirov is son of Akhmad Kadirov, former chief of Chechnya?s Moscow-backed administration, who was assassinated in a bomb attack in May.

?”We are fed up with a threat coming from there. Maybe many sensitive Georgian politicians will not like it, but we would be able to restore order there,? Kadirov told the Chechen newspaper Daimokh, Reuters reported.

“My people are effective and capable. We are capable of conducting any operation in Russia if there is a command from Moscow,” he added.

Georgia?s Pankisi gorge, which is now a shelter for a few thousand Chechen refugees, was a safe haven for Chechen militants several years ago. However, Georgian authorities claim that there are no longer any armed groups in the gorge after a special operation was carried out there in 2002-2003.