Russian Peacekeepers’ Mandate to Be Decided in Two Weeks

(Tbilisi, June 2, 2003, Civil Georgia) – Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov speaking at the news briefing in St.-Petersburg on June 1 said that issue of Russian peacekeepers’ mandate deployed in Abkhazian conflict zone under the auspices of the CIS will be decided in 14 days.

He said that the leaders of the CIS countries agreed at the summit in St.-Petersburg to continue talks in order “to reach mutual acceptable agreement over the Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia.”

The misunderstanding over the peacekeepers’ issue broke after the statement of the Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, which said on May 31 that the leaders of the CIS countries agreed to prolong the Russian peacekeepers’ mandate in Abkhazia for 10 years.

However Georgian Foreign Minister Irakli Menagharishvili denied the report and said that the Russian peacekeepers’ issue was not discussed at the CIS summit in St.-Petersburg. 

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