MOSCOW, July 14 (RIA Novosti) - One person has been killed and four wounded in an explosion near the house of a local parliamentarian in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia, a parliamentary spokesperson said Friday.
Irina Gagloyeva, the head of the press committee, called the incident an assassination attempt on South Ossetian parliamentary deputy and special forces battalion commander Baly Bestalty, organized by the Georgian authorities.
"We know who organized this assassination attempt: he [Bestalty] has been on the Georgian leadership's 'black list' for a long time," she said.
The explosion occurred at 9 a.m. Moscow time (5 a.m. GMT) in Tskhinvali, near a house belonging to Bestalty, who was left unharmed by the blast, the official said.
"As a result of the explosion, one person was killed, one was taken to hospital in a serious condition, and three people were wounded including two children," Gagloyeva said.
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said Wednesday that it had received a warning that Georgia was planning a provocation in South Ossetia, timed to coincide with this weekend's Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday he hoped the reports were unsubstantiated, while Georgian Security Council head Konstantin Kemularia called the accusations groundless.
Russia's first deputy foreign minister warned against moves that could intensify the conflict in Georgia's breakaway republic of South Ossetia at a meeting with the Georgian ambassador to Russia.
At the meeting with Irakli Chubinishvili on Thursday, Andrei Denisov highlighted "the need to refrain from steps and actions that could provoke an escalation of the conflict in the region."
Marat Kulakhmetov, commander of the joint peacekeeping forces in the region, said Friday that the blast was aimed at further destabilizing the situation in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone. He reiterated that Russia's peacekeepers in the region had been put on high alert.
Russia's defense minister, Sergei Ivanov said on June 13 that Moscow would try to ensure that its peacekeepers in South Ossetia were not threatened.
