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SC urges resolution

of Georgian dispute

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council called Friday on Georgia and separatist forces in the breakaway republic of Abkhazia to make urgent progress in resolving their differences.

Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze threatened earlier in the week to use force if peaceful negotiations with Abkhaz separatist forces failed.

The Security Council "remains deeply concerned at the continued obstruction of the return of the refugees and displaced persons by the Abkhaz authorities, which is totally unacceptable," it said in a statement.

It urged the parties, "particularly the Abkhaz side, to reach substantive progress in the political negotiations as a matter of urgency."

Abkhazia broke from Georgia in October 1993, after more than a year of fighting that left 3,000 to 10,000 dead and sent more than 200,000 Georgian refugees from Abkhazia. Since then, border incidents have become commonplace.

The talks, mediated by the United Nations, centre on the political status of the separatist republic and on the return of ethnic Georgian refugees.

Georgia wants a federation with a single capital, Tbilisi, while Abkhazia favours a confederation of two states on equal footing.

Some 3,000 Russian troops are deployed as a buffer force between Georgian and Abkhaz troops in the border regions of Gali and Zugdidi. The Abkhaz parliament promised to vote on "an acceptable resolution of the conflict" and fix a date for a new round of talks, but Shevardnadze accused it of seeking to sabotage the peace process with stalling tactics.-AFP