On Tuesday, the Georgian parliament passed a resolution advising the government to suspend CIS peacekeeping operations in the breakaway region of Abkhazia and take urgent measures to replace Russian peacekeepers with an international contingent.
In their statement, Abkhazian parliamentarians said the resolution was "another trick energetically devised by Georgian members of parliament and will plunge the Georgian people into the abyss of war and bloodshed, taking along those who have been trying to prove their right to freedom and independence for many years."
Collective peacekeeping forces from the Commonwealth of Independent States were introduced in Abkhazia under an agreement of 1994. In 12 years, 112 Russian peacekeepers have died in the Abkhazian conflict zone.
The Abkhazian lawmakers also said "the Russian peacekeeping contingent has been reliable support for the UN mission in the conflict zone for all these years and its work has always been praised by this most influential international organization."
The Abkhazian legislators warned Georgia that if the resolution came into effect, they would ask the Abkhazian president to withdraw the unrecognized republic from peace negotiations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili could meet on the sidelines of a CIS summit due in Moscow on July 21-23.
Russia assisted in concluding ceasefire agreements between Georgia and its separatist republics in the early 1990s and peacekeepers have since helped maintain ceasefire in Georgia's conflict zones.
