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Georgia President Urges UN To Renew Abkhazia Mission As Part Of Georgia

TBILISI, Georgia (AFP)--Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Monday urged the United Nations to renew its monitoring mission in Abkhazia while still recognizing the breakaway region as part of Georgia.

The Georgian government alleges that Russia is seeking to remove references to Abkhazia as part of Georgia in negotiations on the mission's mandate, which expires Monday and is up for a vote in the U.N. Security Council.

Saakashvili said Moscow is trying "to create new international mechanisms aimed at legalizing Russia's unprecedented lawlessness and occupation of Georgian territory."

"Russia is saying: Do you want to keep the mission, than give up the main thing and forget talking about Georgia's territorial integrity," Saakashvili said in televised remarks.

"The U.N. mission cannot be retained without observing the main principle - respect for Georgia's territorial integrity," he said.

Russia recognized Abkhazia and another rebel Georgian region, South Ossetia, as independent states following its war with Georgia last August and has installed thousands of troops in the two regions.

In February, the Security Council voted unanimously to extend the mandate of the U.N. Observer Mission in Georgia for four months pending security arrangements in Abkhazia to be worked out by Moscow and Tbilisi.

The force - 131 military observers and 20 police - was created in 1993 to oversee a ceasefire accord between Georgia and Abkhaz separatist authorities.

A similar dispute has seen talks break down over the extension of the Organiztion for Security and Cooperation in Europe's monitoring mission in South Ossetia. Its mandate expires on June 30 but some OSCE members have accused Russia of impeding talks by insisting that South Ossetia be recognized as separate from Georgia.

  (END) Dow Jones Newswires
  06-15-091350ET
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