SPIES

"The never-easy relations between Russia and Georgia have suffered a fresh blow, with Russian media reporting that federal security services have detained a Georgian-born Russian citizen on charges of spying for Georgia and engaging in terrorist activities in the North Caucasus.

The charges -- which Shota Khizanishvili, the chief of staff of Georgia’s Interior Ministry, has dismissed as "primitive provocation" -- echo Georgia’s 2006 expulsion of four Russian military intelligence officers accused of spying, and come amid already heightened tensions over Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia.....

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has used even starker terms, accusing Russia of attempting to "redraw the postcommunist world order" with its attempts to drive a permanent wedge between Tbilisi and its restive separatist regions.

Saakashvili, who was due to discuss the issue with U.S. President George W. Bush during a meeting in Israel on May 15, has had some success in raising the Abkhaz question to the international level.

Bush expressed concerns about the issue during his first phone call with newly inaugurated Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. And Georgia’s reintegration minister, Temur Iakobashvili, this week dramatically credited France with staving off a war over Abkhazia through private talks with Moscow."

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/pp051808.shtml


So Georgia and Russia are spying on each other....big surprise. I am sure the US has their own spies in both countries as well. As for France preventing a war in Abkhazia, that is really great. Hopefully this situation can be resolved peacefully and soon.