Tension builds as Abkhazia warns Georgia over tanker seizure
Reuters
Published: August 20, 2009, 23:05
Tbilisi: Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia region accused Tbilisi yesterday of trying to suffocate the Black Sea territory and threatened a "proportionate response" after Georgian authorities detained a tanker delivering fuel.
Georgia has stepped up efforts to isolate Abkhazia and another breakaway region, South Ossetia, since a five-day war with Russia last August.
It has banned economic and commercial activities there without its permission.
The Turkish captain of the tanker, operating under a Panama flag, was remanded in custody on Wednesday and faces up to 24 years imprisonment if found guilty of smuggling and violating the ban on unauthorised economic activity.
"Under the law in force in Georgia, we don't even have the right to breathe without permission from Tbilisi," Abkhazia's foreign minister, Sergei Shamba, told Russian Interfax.
"We warned Georgia that we can make a proportionate response, take the same kind of actions that the Georgian side allows itself," he said.
Almost all investment in South Ossetia and Abkhazia comes from Russia, which recognised the regions on its southern border as independent states after crushing a Georgian assault on South Ossetia last August.
Gulfnews: Tension builds as Abkhazia warns Georgia over tanker seizure
Reuters
Published: August 20, 2009, 23:05
Tbilisi: Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia region accused Tbilisi yesterday of trying to suffocate the Black Sea territory and threatened a "proportionate response" after Georgian authorities detained a tanker delivering fuel.
Georgia has stepped up efforts to isolate Abkhazia and another breakaway region, South Ossetia, since a five-day war with Russia last August.
It has banned economic and commercial activities there without its permission.
The Turkish captain of the tanker, operating under a Panama flag, was remanded in custody on Wednesday and faces up to 24 years imprisonment if found guilty of smuggling and violating the ban on unauthorised economic activity.
"Under the law in force in Georgia, we don't even have the right to breathe without permission from Tbilisi," Abkhazia's foreign minister, Sergei Shamba, told Russian Interfax.
"We warned Georgia that we can make a proportionate response, take the same kind of actions that the Georgian side allows itself," he said.
Almost all investment in South Ossetia and Abkhazia comes from Russia, which recognised the regions on its southern border as independent states after crushing a Georgian assault on South Ossetia last August.
Gulfnews: Tension builds as Abkhazia warns Georgia over tanker seizure
