Eurasia Press & News
May 5 (Bloomberg) — Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili called on about 500 mutineers at a military base near the central city of Gori to surrender and said talks are under way with the organizers of the rebellion.
“This is a serious challenge, and we accept this challenge,” Saakashvili said today in comments broadcast live on Georgian television. The former Soviet republic’s remaining military installations are “under control,” he said.
Saakashvili blamed the mutiny on former senior military officials who were fired for corruption. Earlier, the Interior Ministry said two officials had been arrested for planning a military coup with the backing of Russian intelligence agents.
The planned coup could have endangered military exercises organized by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which are scheduled to begin tomorrow at the Vaziani military base near Tbilisi, Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told reporters.
“Their plan was to organize riots across Georgia and to make sure that this riot turned into a full-scale military coup,” Utiashvili said. “The information we have at the moment firmly indicates strong links between this group and Russian intelligence.”
Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s envoy to NATO, said Georgia’s claim of Russian involvement in a military coup attempt was “nonsense.”
‘Provocative Stupidity’
“If Saakashvili gets diarrhea, it must also be the hand or foot of Moscow,” Rogozin said in comments broadcast on state television. “We’re tired of replying to such provocative stupidity, such drivel put out by the Nazi leader of Georgia.”
Georgia’s Foreign Ministry yesterday said Russia had deployed more than 10,000 soldiers in two breakaway Georgian regions, thousands more than previously announced.
Russia routed Georgia’s U.S.-trained army in a five-day August war over the separatist region of South Ossetia and later recognized South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, as sovereign countries. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in October that Russia would deploy 3,700 soldiers in each region.
Saakashvili said Russia had tripled the number of its troops deployed in the two regions and mobilized warships in a “provocative step.”
Russia has been closely monitoring the situation in Tbilisi, where anti-government rallies have been held daily since April 9, and had a plan ready to “intervene” in a bid to undermine Georgian sovereignty and to “stop Georgia on its path toward Euro-Atlantic integration,” Saakashvili said.
