RYAZAN, February 16 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's top military officer said Thursday that the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from the conflict zone between Georgia and its breakaway republic of South Ossetia might provoke a new civil war.
"If peacekeepers withdraw tomorrow, what we left behind in 1992 might be repeated," Chief of the General Staff General Yury Baluyevsky said, referring to the bloody conflict that broke out when South Ossetia and Abkhazia declared independence of Georgia following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Baluyevsky said Russian soldiers had sacrificed their lives in the 1990s to end the regional conflict and denied some critics' charges that Russian peacekeeping troops were ineffective.
Georgian lawmakers criticized Thursday the Russian peacekeepers' efforts in the zone, accusing them of siding with separatists, and adopted a resolution to replace them with an international contingent.
The parliamentary resolution is expected to further strain relations between Russia and Georgia, whose government has openly sought membership in NATO and the European Union since it came to power in 2004 following the Rose Revolution in the South Caucasus republic.
Baluyevsky said the peacekeeping contingent comprised Russian, South Ossetian and Georgian battalions and accused Georgians of being unpredictable.
"The Georgian battalion has ignored orders issued by the commander, Russian General Marat Kulakhmetov," he said.
Baluyevsky also said the possible withdrawal would have to be approved by largely pro-Russian South Ossetia, which has insisted on the Russian troops' presence in the region.
"I hope the Georgian parliament's resolution was an emotional outburst," he said.
Tensions in the conflict zone were strained recently when Georgian police detained a Russian peacekeeping truck involved in a traffic accident near South Ossetia and introduced visas for Russian peacekeepers.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has repeatedly vowed to bring South Ossetia and Abkhazia back under Georgia's control.
