Georgia, Russia Trade Abkhazia Charges : Unrest: Shevardnadze says his soldiers were killed in breakaway region. Moscow scoffs at the accusation and issues warning of its own.
MOSCOW — The leadership of the former Soviet republic of Georgia on Tuesday accused Russian forces of killing several of its soldiers in the strife-torn Black Sea region of Abkhazia, but Moscow dismissed the charges and issued a warning to local gunmen to stop terrorizing Russians in the area.
Georgian leader Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister, said a Georgian troop commander told him several Georgian national guardsmen were killed by Russian fire while crossing a river near the Abkhazian capital, Sukhumi, news agencies reported.
But Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, in an interview with the Russian Interfax news agency, categorically denied that Russian troops participated in any attack on Georgian troops. He stressed that he had assured Shevardnadze of as much in a telephone conversation earlier in the day.
Shevardnadze had said that if the reports about Russian aggression proved true, they could jeopardize peace talks on the Abkhazia issue scheduled for Thursday in Moscow. Yeltsin, however, said, “I am certain that the meeting with Eduard Shevardnadze in Moscow on Sept. 3 will take place.â€
Yeltsin decided to play peace broker in the territorial conflict raging south of his border in Abkhazia after chieftains from predominantly Muslim regions of Russia started sending troops across the Caucasus Mountains to aid the Abkhazians in their battle with Shevardnadze’s government.
The fighting between Abkhazians and Georgians has simmered in the Black Sea enclave since Abkhazia declared independence last month. More than 100 people on each side have been killed in the bloodshed, according to reports from the region.
A Russian government statement Tuesday accused Georgian troops of endangering the lives of Russian soldiers and civilians in the region.
“This deserves the strongest denunciation. . . . We resolutely warn initiators of these actions,†said the statement, which was distributed by the Itar-Tass news agency.
The Russian Defense Ministry similarly warned that if armed attacks against Russian military facilities and servicemen continue, Russian troops may be forced to take “retaliatory strikes,†Itar-Tass reported.
The bloodshed in Abkhazia is just one of several violent conflicts raging in the territory of the former Soviet Union.
Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other of breaking a day-old cease-fire, which was forged with hopes of bringing an end to a four-year territorial conflict between the two Caucasus republics over Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Azerbaijani presidential press service said the Armenian side had violated the truce by launching large-scale shelling attacks at a number of areas inside Azerbaijani territory.
Armenia, however, said that Azerbaijan had violated the peace treaty before dawn Tuesday with an air raid on Nagorno-Karabakh’s capital, Stepanakert, which killed 16 people, including five children, and wounded more than 120 people.
The acting chairman of the Nagorno-Karabakh Parliament, Georgy Petrayan, told Itar-Tass that Armenia considered the attack a “humiliation†and “the Azeri leadership’s slap in the face†of peacemaking initiatives.
Elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, armed opposition forces calling for the resignation of Tajikistan’s hard-line president, Rakhman Nabiyev, took full control of his official residence in Dushanbe, capital of the Central Asian republic, according to local reports.
Some of the government officials taken hostage by the opposition Monday during a huge protest rally outside the presidential building were released, but some were still being held, according to Itar-Tass.
There were conflicting reports about Nabiyev’s whereabouts.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
