Russia's foreign minister has suggested a shooting incident near a motorcade carrying the Georgian and Polish presidents was planned by Georgia to discredit Moscow and its allies, Russian media reported on Monday.
Nobody was hurt in the shooting on Sunday in Georgia, near territory controlled by Russian and separatist South Ossetian forces, but it has further increased tensions that have remain from the war in August between Russia and Georgia.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has blamed Russian troops for the gunfire that broke out as he and Polish President Lech Kaczynski traveled near a roadblock on the edge of the disputed territory.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said there was no gunfire from Russian or South Ossetian positions and suggested Georgia was behind the incident, Russian news agencies reported.
"This is a provocation, clearly," Interfax quoted Lavrov as saying late Sunday in Peru, where he was accompanying President Dmitry Medvedev. "It's not the first time something like this has happened: they organize everything themselves and then blame the Russian or Ossetian side."
Kaczynski said on Sunday that the shots were fired from only about 30 m from the motorcade. He said it was not clear if the gunfire was aimed at the motorcade or shots were fired into the air.
"I know from their shouting that they were Russians; I also know from the president of Georgia that there are Russian outposts on that territory," Kaczynski said.
Boris Atoyev, head of the South Ossetian security agency, said guards at the border between Georgian-controlled and South Ossetian-controlled territory refused to let the motorcade through.
The incident occurred near the tense Akhalgori area. Unlike most of South Ossetia, Akhalgori was controlled by Georgia before the war, and Georgia says the presence of Russian and South Ossetian forces there violates the terms of a French-brokered cease-fire.
Russia repelled a sudden attack on South Ossetia by Georigan forces in early August and later formally recognized South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, as independent states. Russia has thousands of troops stationed in the two regions as peacekeepers.
On Monday, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and EU's foreign policy and security chief Javier Solana condemned Sunday's shooting and said they needed more information on it.
"When there is a shooting, from whatever part the shooting might have come, it is wrong. (It is) certainly not in the spirit of the agreements signed."
"I do not know any details. I cannot start blaming any one. I can start blaming those who are responsible," de Hoop Scheffer said.
Solana echoed de Hoop Scheffer's words, adding that he will seek more information from EU observers deployed there.
(China Daily via Agencies, Xinhua News Agency November 25, 2008)
