RUSSIAN TROOPS LEAVE NATO ALLY
United Press International
May 31 2007
TBILISI, Georgia, May 31 (UPI) — Russian forces are continuing their
withdrawal from the territory of a former Soviet republic seeking
NATO membership.
The Georgian Defense Ministry announced Wednesday that the fifth
in a series of Russian military convoys had departed from a Russian
military base in Georgia under an agreement reached in 2006 on the
closing of Russian military bases, according to an RIA Novosti report.
"The truck convoy crossed the Georgian border mid-afternoon Moscow
time and headed to the Russian military base in Gyumri in Armenia,"
a Georgian official said, according to the report.
RIA Novosti said the Russian forces left their base at Akhalkalaki
in an area with an ethnic majority Armenian population. The base will
be emptied by the beginning of 2007, and another Russian base in the
Black Sea port of Batumi will be evacuated by two years after that,
RIA Novosti said.
Moscow plans to send five more truck convoys and 10 trains to complete
the evacuation of troops and equipment from the Akhalkalaki base by
the end of December, it said.
As part of the phased evacuation plan, Russia completed the evacuation
of all its troops from their base in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi,
in December 2006. Only 13 Russian soldiers will remain from the
Tbilisi base to work on the next stages of the evacuation.
Relations between Russia and the government of President Mikhail
Saakashvili remain tense. Georgian leaders are building their ties
to NATO and hope to eventually join the U.S.-led alliance.