ERGNETI, Georgia – Georgian authorities reclaimed this ransacked village yesterday after it had been under Russian control since August. They kissed one another in congratulations, cleared rotting food from the shelves of a grocery and got down to serious business: getting a look at the enemy.
Ossetian soldiers and Russian peacekeepers were positioned about 200 yards to the north, and Georgian police officers examined them through binoculars, commenting to one another on the weapons their counterparts were carrying.
The soldiers peered back nervously, watching as the Georgians built their new checkpoint. At one point, when they saw a sudden movement from across the line, they all jumped.
Russia removed its last checkpoints from the buffer zones outside the breakaway enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia yesterday, fulfilling a central requirement of a French-brokered cease-fire agreement two days before an Oct. 10 deadline. No violence was reported on either side, but it was clear, from watching Georgian forces dig into their new positions in Ergneti, that the tensions were undiminished.
A mutual stare-down at close range was “how the war started,” said Shota Utiashvili, a senior official in Georgia's Interior Ministry.
“That situation is quite dangerous, to be frank,” Utiashvili said. “It might quickly evolve into something dangerous.”
Georgian authorities still want Russian forces to withdraw from Akhalgori, a town in South Ossetia, and from the Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia – areas administered by Georgia before the August war. They are also calling for ethnic Georgian refugees to be allowed to return to their homes in the disputed territories and for European monitors to patrol inside the enclaves, not just in Georgian territory, Utiashvili said.
Utiashvili told The Associated Press yesterday that the Russian pullout was a positive move, but he added that Georgia would not consider it complete until the troops leave Akhalgori and the Kodori Gorge.
“We think that it's a step in the right direction, but it doesn't mean yet that the withdrawal is fulfilled,” Utiashvili said.
Russia maintains that Akhalgori is part of South Ossetia and considers the Kodori Gorge part of Abkhazia – claims that Georgia rejects.
Moscow must pull its troops from the buffer zones surrounding the two regions by tomorrow under cease-fire agreements brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Earlier yesterday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the pullout from areas outside South Ossetia and Abkhazia would be completed by midnight.
Despite the dispute, the Russian withdrawal paves the way for the return of Georgian authority to a wide swath of territory held by Moscow since the war.
The war began Aug. 7, when Georgia attacked Russian-backed separatists in South Ossetia. Russia responded by sending troops deep into Georgian territory, setting off the worst confrontation between Russia and the United States since the Cold War.
