President Denies Prolongation of Peacekeepers’ Mandate

(Tbilisi, June 2, 2003, Civil Georgia) – Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze dismissed as “misunderstanding” the statement by Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma in St. Petersburg concerning the prolongation of Russian peacekeepers’ mandate in Abkhazia for 10 years.

“Kuchma has probably misapprehended the issue. We have not discussed the Abkhaz issue. At the Sochi meeting with President Putin [on March 7] we agreed that the peacekeeping forces would immediately leave the territory of Georgia at the request of one of the sides. We can do it even through a telephone conversation,” the Georgian President said in his Monday radio broadcast.

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.”

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