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Russia withdraws troops from Georgia
Thu, 15 Nov 2007 04:42:10
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Russia has fully pulled out its troops from Georgia.
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Russia has fully withdrawn its troops that had been based in Georgia since the collapse of the Soviet union, a top Russian general says.
The Russian troop presence had long been a source of irritation between Georgia and its giant neighbor.
Russian peacekeepers remain, however, in two separatist regions of the former Soviet republic, said Gen. Alexei Maslov, commander of Russian ground troops, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
"There are no more Russian troops in Georgia, there remain only peacekeepers ... in Abkhazia, and those that are part of the combined forces in South Ossetia with the participation of Georgia,'' Maslov was quoted as saying.
The breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia have been outside Georgian control since the end of wars in the mid-1990s.
Georgian leaders complain that Russian troops in both regions support the separatists, and their continued presence is likely to continue being an issue of hot dispute between Tbilisi and Moscow.
But the final removal of troops that were based in Georgia as a hangover from the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union would remove another of the more contentious points in Russian-Georgian relations.
Russia completed withdrawal of troops from its other base in Georgia, Akhalkalaki, in June and had agreed to close the Batumi operations by October 2008. It was not immediately clear why Russia chose to complete that withdrawal so far ahead of time.
MRI/RA
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