Tbilisi Threatens to Use Force in S.Ossetia

Senior Georgian parliamentarian Givi Targamadze warned on September 4 that Tbilisi may use force to regain control over breakaway South Ossetia even if Tbilisi fails to secure “an appropriate” international support.

“If there is no appropriate international support, the Georgian armed forces will have to wipe out these bandits from this [South Ossetian] territory… This is irreversible,” MP Givi Targamadze told Rustavi 2 television on September 4.

“The Georgian Foreign Ministry has to undertake huge efforts in coming days and months to de-freeze the [South Ossetia peace] process. I want to say that this [South Ossetian] issue should be solved even if no appropriate [international] support is achieved and should be resolved, if necessary, through forceful operations,” he added.

Givi Targamadze is an influential MP from the ruling National Movement party, who chairs Parliamentary Committee for Defense and Security. He has close links with President Saakashvili and Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili.

This is the first case when a Georgian official publicly speaks of possible use of force to solve the secessionist conflict.
 
MP Targamadze’s statement was evidently addressed to the international community, in particular to the western powers, to intensify their efforts in search of a prompt and effective solution to the conflict; otherwise warning that dragging out of the process may lead to a hostilities.

Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili has twice publicly stated to reunite South Ossetia by January, 2007, otherwise he vowed to resign.

Tbilisi, Moscow Exchange Barbs

The statement of MP Targamadze came after the September 3 incident, when the Georgian army helicopter MI-8 which reportedly carried Defense Minister Okruashvili was shot at by the South Ossetian militias forcing the aircraft to carry out an emergency landing.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said on September 4 that Georgia has provoked the incident, as flights over the South Ossetian conflict zone is banned by the 2002 agreement signed in frames of the Joint Control Commission, which involves the Georgian, South Ossetian, Russian and Russia’s North Ossetian sides.

The Russian MFA also said that the helicopter incident was “a confirmation that alternative ways of solution [to the conflict] are being searched for by [officials] in Tbilisi.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry also said that Georgian Defense Ministry aircraft violated the conflict zone’s airspace 12 times in July-August.

The statement said nothing about the helicopter coming under fire, an omission that, according to the Georgian Foreign Ministry, is yet another indication of Moscow’s open support for the secessionist authorities in breakaway South Ossetia.

Speaking at a news conference on September 4, Georgian State Minister for Conflict Resolution Issues Merab Antadze said “the Russian political leadership is planning serious destabilization in Georgia and the stirring up of armed hostilities” in South Ossetia.

Tbilisi refuses to recognize any agreement restricting its aircraft’s flights over any of its territory.

“Georgia’s airspace has never been fragmented and no authorization or permit is needed for Georgia to conduct flights [over South Ossetia],” Antadze said.

The statement is along the same lines as an earlier announcement by Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili, who said shortly after the incident on September 3 that Georgian aircraft are authorized to fly anywhere on its territory including the conflict zone. 
However, Head of OSCE Mission in Georgia, British diplomat Roy Reeve, said on September 4 that “there is an agreement between the Chairmen of the Joint Control Commission that they will not make flights over the zone of conflict.”

But he also added that “firing at an aircraft is illegal.”

The OSCE, which has observers in the conflict zone, is currently investigating the incident.

“We are attempting to talk to people who saw the incident and then we will make our judgment… Either individual States or the [OSCE] Chairmanship may decide to make statements,” Ambassador Reeve told reporters.
 
Meanwhile, the South Ossetian side has reported a build-up of Georgian military forces near the conflict zone. But Goga Aptsiauri, a reporter of the RFE/RL Georgian Service who is based in Gori, a town near the conflict zone, told Civil Georgia on September 4 that there is no sign of a growing Georgian military presence in the area.