MOSCOW, June 2 (RIA Novosti) - Georgia's recent actions show it has not ruled out a military solution to the long-running South Ossetia conflict, Russia's foreign minister said Friday.
Sergei Lavrov told journalists that Georgia had refused to sign agreements on South Ossetia that would prohibit the use of force to resolve the conflict, and that Georgia has procured a large number of weapons.
"This is a huge quantity of offensive weapons. All of this can only lead to the thought that the use of force to resolve the situation is being considered," Lavrov said.
He said Russia has always supported Georgia's territorial integrity, but that "in conditions when a considerable part of Georgia is internationally acknowledged as a conflict zone - South Ossetia, as well as Abkhazia - the Georgian authorities cannot really control this territory."
"To solve the problem we need to return to the negotiating table, which are often hindered and sometimes sabotaged by Georgia," Lavrov said.
Georgia's state minister for conflict resolution issues earlier accused Russia of bringing forces into South Ossetia in excess of an established quota for peacekeepers, using the rotation of its peacekeeping battalion in the zone of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict as a cover.
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.
