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Abkhazia confirms Georgian report of crashed plane
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 25 - 08 - 2007


A plane of uncertain origin went
down over Abkhazia, a top official of the separatist region
said Saturday, a day after Georgia said its forces fired on
a plane believed to be Russian that had violated the
country's airspace, according to AP.
Georgia's claim Friday further escalated tensions with
Russia, which had soared earlier in the month when Georgia
said a Russian bomber dropped a missile on a Georgian
village; the missile did not explode. In both cases, Russia
denied that its planes had violated Georgian air space.
If Georgia did shoot down a Russian plane, it would be the
most serious incident in years between the countries.
In the latest claim, Georgia said it fired on Wednesday at
a plane over Upper Abkhazia, a remote and ruggedly
mountainous area adjacent to separatist-controlled
Abkhazia. Authorities said the plane was believed to have
crashed.
On Saturday, the chief of staff of separatist Abkhazia's
military, Anatoly Zaitsev, told reporters that a plane or
its fragments definitely had crashed Wednesday and that he
had seen the plane himself.
«The aircraft was going down, a volley of blueish smoke
was coming after it and there were two large fragments
flying behind its tail from inertia for a while. One of
them is believed to have fallen in the lower part of the
Kodori Gorge,» he said. The gorge runs from Georgian
territory into separatist-controlled territory.
He did not specify what kind of plane it was. But Sergei
Shamba, the foreign minister of Abkhazia's internationally
unrecognized government, said the plane «most likely»
belonged to Georgia, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.
A Russian air force spokesman, Col. Alexander
Drobyshevsky, said on Russia's Channel 1 TV Saturday that
Georgia's claim Friday was «the latest provocation aimed
against us.»
Russia earlier said the Georgian claim of the dropped
missile was a fabrication aimed at ratcheting up tensions
over the status of South Ossetia, another rebellious region
that like Abkhazia seeks to become either independent or to
be incorporated into Russia.
President Mikhail Saakashvili has vowed to bring the
regions back under his government's control and has further
irritated Moscow by pushing for Georgia to become a NATO
member. The United States and other NATO countries have
given substantial military aid to Georgia _ which Russians
widely regard as an attempt to establish a beachhead in
territory that historically has been under Russian control
or influence.
Two groups of independent experts that investigated the
missile-dropping incident agreed that Georgian airspace was
violated three times that day by aircraft flying from
Russian airspace. The first team was from the U.S., Sweden,
Latvia and Lithuania. The second team was from Estonia,
Poland and Britain.
Russia has rejected those reports.


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