MOSCOW, July 8 (RIA Novosti) - Georgia dismissed on Wednesday reports that it had resumed reconnaissance flights over Abkhazia.
The Abkhazian Foreign Ministry said that late on Tuesday night border guards observed four Georgian unmanned aerial vehicles flying in pairs over the territory of Abkhazia an hour and a half apart.
Abkhazia expressed serious concern over the incident, saying it could lead to a new escalation of the standoff with Georgia.
"Our planes have not violated the airspace over the territory controlled by the Abkhazian side or in close proximity to the administrative border," a Georgian Defense Ministry spokesman said.
Abkhazia has had de facto independence from Georgia since a military conflict in the early 1990s, and was recognized as a sovereign state by Moscow last August, two weeks after Russia's war with Georgia over South Ossetia, another former Georgian republic.
United Nations military observers stopped work in the region on June 16 when Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution to extend its mandate, and the monitors will leave by July 15. Russia said on Wednesday it did all it could to prolong the mission.
