Moscow, Feb 18: Georgia's national Security Council decided to extend the mandate of Russia's peacekeeping buffer force in the breakaway western region of Abkhazia, the Interfax news agency reported. "The Security Council took this decision as Georgia currently has no alternative at this stage of the peacekeeping operation in Abkhazia," the council's secretary Tedo Dzhaparidze said late last night.
The mandate would be extended by six months, Dzhaparidze told reporters, warning however that "this decision is not final and President Eduard Shevardnadze must sign it within a few days." Russia has some 3,000 troops in Abkhazia. They are part of a buffer force between Georgian government and separatist forces formed by the Commonwealth of independent states, a loose association of 12 former soviet republics to which both Russia and Georgia belong.

The Russian troops' mandate, which is renewed every six months, expired on December 31, 2002, and Shevardnadze last month warned that Tbilisi might not renew the mandate. Georgia sent its forces into Abkhazia in 1992, shortly after the region declared independence from Tbilisi.
After a year-long conflict, in which some 16,000 people were killed and around 250,000 Georgians fled their homes, Abkhazia achieved de facto independence which has not been internationally recognised.
Georgian-Russian relations have lately shown signs of improving after a long period of strain caused by the presence of Chechen rebels in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, with Moscow accusing Tbilisi of allowing the rebels to use the lawless northern region as a rear base.
Bureau Report