The council session will be convened in the wake of Tbilisi reports March 13 about artillery and helicopter shelling of three villages in the north of Kodori Gorge, a territory in Abkhazia controlled by the central Georgian authorities.
Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli will be attending the session, while the Abkhazian representative was denied a visa by the United States. Russia as a permanent Security Council member has insisted on Abkhazia's representation at the session and said the visa denial was "discriminatory."
"Both the Abkhazian and Georgian sides have been officially recognized as equal and therefore they should have the right to present their stance directly to those who are trying to resolve the problem," Vladislav Chernov, the Russian envoy for the conflict, said.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will deliver his report on the progress of the resolution, which was passed last October on Russia's initiative. The resolution urged Georgia to pullout troops from northern Kodori and ruled to extend the Russian peacekeeping mission in Abkhazia until April 15, 2007.
Russian peacekeepers have been in Georgia's self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia since they declared independence in the early 1990s. Georgia accuses the Kremlin of supporting the breakaway regions' drive for independence.
The session will also study the possibility of extending the mandate of the UN observer mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) for another six months, and bringing the two conflicting sides to the negotiating table.
