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Russia may increase peacekeepers in Georgia's rebel region

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Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that the country could increase its peacekeeping contingent in Georgia's breakaway republic of South Ossetia.
MOSCOW, August 14 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that the country could increase its peacekeeping contingent in Georgia's breakaway republic of South Ossetia.

Georgian troops launched an offensive on South Ossetia August 8 devastating the capital Tskhinvali. In response Moscow sent in troops as part of a military campaign to reinforce peacekeepers and to expel Georgian forces from the region. The operation was completed on Tuesday.

"This issue needs to be coordinated by the sides, primarily South Ossetia...agreements are in place ... figures on approved limits for peacekeeping numbers in South Ossetia exist and these figures include the possibility of increasing Russia's peacekeeping presence," Lavrov said in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station.

The minister also said South Ossetia and Abkhazia have said that they will continue to support Russia's presence on their territory.

He said that Moscow would back deploying additional observers in the conflict zones and that both South Ossetia and Abkhazia were open to cooperation and ready to consider an increase in the number of international peacekeepers in the region.

Russian peacekeepers have been stationed in Georgia's separatist regions since the 1990s, when Georgia lost control of the region following bloody conflicts that ended in de facto independence for both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

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