RUSSIA-GEORGIA CROSSING RE-OPENS

Al-Jazeera
news/europe/2010/03/201031124943879961.html
March 1 2010
Qatar

Georgia and Russia have re-opened their only usable land border
crossing for traffic and trade for the first time in four years.

The border post, in the Caucasus town of Kazbegi in Georgia, opened
to traffic on Monday at 7am (0300GMT) after a brief, pre-dawn ceremony.

"The Daryal checkpoint, which was closed for several years, had been
officially opened today," Georgy Gegechkori, a local police chief,
told reporters.

The crossing runs through a narrow pass in the Caucasus mountains,
about 170km from Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.

It was closed in 2006 after tensions between Russia and Georgia
escalated in a situation that eventually led to a five-day war in 2008.

Tensions between the two sides reached a flashpoint in August 2008,
when Russian forces poured into Georgia to repel a Georgian military
attempt to retake South Ossetia, which had received extensive backing
from Moscow for years.

Russia later mostly withdrew to within South Ossetia and Abkhazia,
which Moscow recognised as independent states in August 2008.

‘No warming ties’

The crossing is the only land border point that does not go through
South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

But Nino Kalandadze, Georgia’s deputy foreign minister, said the move
"does not mean [a] warming" in ties with Moscow.

"The opening of the crossing will not have significant economic
or political consequences for Georgia," the AFP news agency quoted
Kalandadze as saying.

"But it is a positive fact that the differences between Georgia and
Russia did not impede the opening."

He said Georgia’s consent to the re-opening was "motivated exclusively
by our will to give a helping hand to our neighbour Armenia".

The closing of the crossing dealt a heavy blow to Armenia, which
relied on the crossing as its only overland route to Russia, the
country’s key economic partner.