Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
July 12, 2006 Wednesday
NO WAY OF MAKING IT INTO GEORGIA
by Vasily Kashin
THE RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH OSSETIA ELEVATES TO A NEW
LEVEL; Russia and Georgia: tension does not abate.
Russia closed Verkhny Lars, the only crossing point on the state
border official Tbilisi recognized as legitimate.
Sources in the Georgian Department of Border Police say that the
Russians closed Verkhny Lars on Saturday night citing the necessity
to repair the road leading to it. The Russians did not say when they
expected to open it again. An officer of the Caucasus Regional
Directorate of the Border Service of the Federal Security Service
claims that Verkhny Lars was closed for scheduled repairs and that
the Georgians had been informed of it months in advance. Nobody at
the Regional Directorate knows when the repairs will be over. The
Georgians are advised to use the crossing point on the border between
Russia and South Ossetia.
The Military Georgian Road where Verkhny Lars is located is the only
road by land between Russia and Georgia under Tbilisi’s control. A
ferry from Novorossiisk to Poti is the only alternative to it.
Georgian Senior Deputy Minister of Transportation, Natia Turnava,
maintains that 20-25% of the Russian-Georgian trade turnover passed
through Verkhny Lars before late 2005, when Russia slapped
restrictions on import of wines and carbonated water from Georgia.
The figure is much lower now. Verkhny Lars remains the main channel
the Georgians visiting Russia use. Alexander Skakov, Chief of the CIS
Department of the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies, claims that
the closed Verkhny Lars is not going to have a noticeable effect on
the macroeconomic situation. What it will have a crippling effect on
are small Georgian businesses.
Prime Minister of Georgia Zurab Nogaideli maintains in his turn that
the closed Verkhny Lars will have a thoroughly negative economic
effect on Armenia, the country Russia depends on Georgia for contacts
with. Indeed, the Armenian Transport Ministry claims that up to 20%
of transit shipments between Russia and Armenia passed through
Verkhny Lars in 2005.
Armenia did not respond in any manner. Georgia did. Tbilisi called it
an act of "economic and political pressure" and reiterated.
Yesterday, Georgian servicemen closed the Trans-Caucasus Highway
running across South Ossetia. It was done in the vicinity of the
settlement of Kekhvi located between the Rok Tunnel and Tskhinvali.
Whatever Russian citizens fail to produce Georgian visas are turned
back. (Most South Ossetians are citizens of Russia.)
Neither does the recent tragedy in Tskhinvali help matters. Secretary
of the Security Council, Oleg Alborov, perished in a remote-control
explosion in front of his house in Tskhinvali last Sunday. The
authorities of South Ossetia called it a despicable act of terrorism
and pinned the blame on Georgia. Interior Minister Mikhail Mindzayev
told INTERFAX news agency that the Georgian authorities compiled a
list of South Ossetian leaders marked for elimination prior to the
military invasion. Georgy Khaindrava, Georgian State Minister for
Conflict Resolution, denounced all accusations and called Alborov
"the most pro-Georgian" of all South Ossetian politicians. Aleksei
Malashenko of the Moscow Carnegie Center does not think that
assassination of Alborov will provoke an armed confrontation but says
it will certainly mount tension on the eve of the G8 summit in Russia
and that the Kremlin could do without.
Source: Vedomosti, July 10, 2006, p. A2
Translated by A. Ignatkin