Georgia quits Moscow 1994 ceasefire agreement

15:38 | 30/ 08/ 2008

TBILISI, August 30 (RIA Novosti) – Georgia’s reintegration minister
said on Saturday that Tbilisi was formally pulling out of a 1994
UN-approved agreement signed in Moscow by Abkhazia and Georgia
following a bloody conflict.

"The Secretariat of Georgian Reintegration Minister Temur Yakobashvili
has declared the Moscow agreement on a ceasefire and separation of
forces of May 14, 1994 as void," a statement said on Saturday.

Abkhazia, alongside South Ossetia, another Georgian breakaway republic,
declared its independence from Georgia in the early 1990s following the
collapse of the Soviet Union. Between 10,000 and 30,000 people were
killed in the ensuing Georgian-Abkhazian conflict. A ceasefire was
signed in Moscow in 1994.

Georgia’s withdrawal from the agreement will also affect the UN
observer mission in Georgia (UNOMIG), which monitors the ceasefire
together with Russian peacekeeping troops.

Georgian Prime Minister Vladimir Gurgenidze signed an instruction for
Georgia on Friday to withdraw from all peacekeeping agreements within
the Commonwealth of Independent States and with Russia.

The withdrawal came after Russia’s decisions to officially recognize
South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states on Tuesday following
Georgia’s military offensive on South Ossetia August 8.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili announced August 12 that the
country was pulling out of the Russian-dominated Commonwealth of
Independent States, a loose alliance of former Soviet republics. The
Georgian parliament approved the decision two days later.

The CIS comprises Russia, Georgia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Azerbaijan, Moldova, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.