Georgia calls on UN to check Russian presence in Abkhazia

MOSCOW - Georgia has called on the United Nations to send more observers to the separatist Georgian region of Abkhazia to check on the increase in Russian troops there, a parliamentary spokesman said Saturday.
"We have serious suspicions that there have been violations," said Nika Sturoua the vice-president of the defence and security committee, the Interfax news agency reported.
Sturova said they believed that Moscow had exceeded the quota of troops allowed for its contingent in the pro-Russian province and that "illegal weapons" had been deployed there.
Sturovas said that the UN was going to send extra observers to check on the weapons displayed, he added.
Extra Russian troops deployed Thursday in Abkhazia, despite objections from Georgia, which denounced the move as a "dangerous escalation."
The development sparked expressions of concern from the United Nations, the European Union and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Russia already had a force of more than 2,000 stationed there as part of an agreement ending the armed conflict in the early 1990s between the Abkhaz separatists and the Georgian government.
That agreement allows for up to 3,000 Russian soldiers to be deployed there, said Abhkhaz foreign affairs spokesman Sergei Chamba. It is not clear how many Russian soldiers arrived in the region Thursday.
The United Nations observers mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) was set up in 1993 to ensure the ceasefire there was respected.
Meanwhile, the so-called defence minister of Abkhazia, Merab Kichmario, said his forces were prepared for any kind of military intervention by Georgia, Interfax said.
"We are in the loop about Georgian plans for a military intervention in Abkhazia. We are ready ... and our units are in a state of alert," he said, warning that in such a case his forces would enter Georgian territory.