Official: Attacks on Peacekeepers Aim at Destabilization

Georgian Deputy Security Minister Baku Kutelia said that certain forces are trying to fuel tensions in breakaway South Ossetia by masterminding attacks against the joint peacekeeping troops stationed in the conflict zone.

?Many questionable facts taking place in the South Ossetian conflict area recently. The attacks on peacekeepers are also rather questionable. It seems that we have to deal with deliberate provocations aimed towrads destabilization [of the situation],? Baku Kutelia told Civil Georgia on October 14, adding that Tbilisi will not permit disorders in the conflict area.

On October 12 soldiers from the Ossetian battalion of the joint ? Russian-Georgian-Ossetian- peacekeeping forces were attacked in the conflict zone. One Ossetian peacekeeper died and two others were injured. Later, Georgian law enforcers reported that they arrested four people, including two who were wounded in the attack. The South Ossetian side claims that one of the wounded servicemen died while being held in the Georgian State Security Ministry.

However, the Georgian Deputy Security Minister Baku Kutelia says that the Ossetian man died on the road to Tbilisi and not in the Ministry of Security.

He said the Georgian law-enforcement agencies probed the identities of the arrested men, as the Georgian side does not rule out that the detainees might not, in fact, be peacekeepers.