TBILISI, September 4 (RIA Novosti) - Georgia officially opened a check point located on its border with Russia on Friday.
The U.S. Ambassador to Georgia, John Tefft, and heads from the Georgian Interior Ministry's border and patrol police, Zaza Gogava and Georgy Grigalishvili, attended the opening ceremony.
The Kazbegi checkpoint was built as part of a program to ensure Georgian border security and sponsored by the U.S. government. The construction of the outpost led by a team of U.S. Army engineers involved $2.4 million of investment.
Russia closed the Verkhny Lars check point in July 2006 for repairs and upgrading. The modernization of the Verkhny Lars vehicle checkpoint, the only one along the Russian-Georgian border, was completed in May. The reopening of the Kazbegi-Verkhny Lars was hampered after the two former Soviet states broke off diplomatic relations.
Switzerland has been representing Russian interests in Georgia and Georgian interests in Russia since diplomatic ties were cut between Tbilisi and Moscow last August after a five-day war between the two over the former Georgian republic, South Ossetia.
Verkhny Lars, located 38 km south of Vladikavkaz, the capital of Russia's North Ossetia, along the Georgian Military Road, has also been a source of occasional bilateral conflicts, the most serious of which occurred in the 1990s, when Russian border guards moved to curb the smuggling of alcohol into the country.
On a visit to Armenia in late June, the Georgian president said Tbilisi was ready to reopen the road across the Verkhny Lars check point.
"Georgia is ready to reopen the road if Russia agrees to do so. I am also ready to discuss the issue with Russia. As for us, we are ready to open the road both for freight and passenger carriage," Mikheil Saakashvili said.
