The leaders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia - both in Georgia - and of Moldova's Transdnestr region met in the Abkhaz capital, Sukhumi, in mid-June to discuss peacekeeping missions.
"I have issued instructions to form a peacekeeping platoon," said Igor Smirnov, adding that the joint peacekeeping contingent would be created on a permanent basis.
"I do not think that they [peacekeeping forces] will be used, but if Russia has to pull out its peacekeepers from the region, our joint peacekeeping contingent will be deployed in their place," he said.
Russia has had peacekeepers in all three regions since bloody conflicts erupted at the beginning of the 1990s, but NATO, Georgia and Moldova have been urging a military pullout from former Soviet republics under the 1999 Istanbul Commitments, part of the amended Conventional Forces in Europe treaty.
Abkhaz President Sergei Bagapsh also said in mid-June that the unrecognized republics were not planning to form a military alliance and had agreed to resolve all disputes through negotiation.
The leaders of the three breakaway regions also discussed the formation of an association similar to GUAM, a regional organization uniting Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova, but agreed to postpone any decision until conditions were right.
"We decided not to hurry with the creation of the association and make preparatory steps to ensure that it [the decision] does not remain only on paper," the Abkhazian foreign minister said after the meeting.
