MOSCOW, June 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia respects Georgia's territorial integrity but believes it has yet to become a reality, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Thursday.
The comment came in response to Georgia's recent accusations against Russian peacekeepers in the conflict zone with the Caucasian country's breakaway South Ossetia region.
"We respect the principle of territorial integrity but so far, with regard to Georgia, this is more a possibility than a political and legal reality; this can only be created as a result of complex negotiations taking into account the South Ossetian position, which is based on another universally recognized principle - the right to self-determination," the ministry said.
Georgia said earlier the Russian peacekeepers used an illegal border crossing point and had no Georgian visas.
The Georgian state minister for conflict resolution said Russian peacekeepers were using two officially closed sectors, the Roksky tunnel (on the border between South and North Ossetia) and the Psou River (between Russia and Abkhazia) to conduct the rotation.
The Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed the complaints, saying the use of the Roksky tunnel was legitimate.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Wednesday that the rotation that had enraged the Georgian leadership would continue despite Georgia's warnings.
A Russian peacekeeping battalion has been stationed in South Ossetia since an end to fighting in the early 1990s after the region tried to secede from Georgia.
The Georgian Foreign Ministry said last week that the current rotation had not been coordinated with the Georgian co-chairman of the JCC - the body comprising Georgia, South Ossetia and Russia that is attempting to find a solution to the conflict - and that Russia was stalling on talks over visas for its peacekeepers.
