Georgia Faults Russia On South Ossetia Peace Plan
February 09, 2006
9 February 2006 -- Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili today criticized Russia for not showing enough support of a peace plan for resolving a conflict over the breakaway republic of South Ossetia.
He was referring to a plan worked out by Tbilisi and recognized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe as the basis for a solution to the conflict.
Speaking to the OSCE in Vienna, Bezhuashvili also suggested that Russia has sent loyalists into South Ossetia in a bid to expand its influence there.
The Georgian minister said most of those serving in the South Ossetian government were Russian citizens, and he accused Russia of illegally granting citizens of the republic Russian citizenship.
He said that those in the region who express pro-Georgian sympathies face "arrest and detention."
(AP)