Georgia to Attack Adzharia with Tanks, Warns Republican President

BATUMI, FEBRUARY 27 (RIA NOVOSTI) – The Georgian top is planning to crash Adzharia with the force of arms, republican President Aslan Abashidze announced today while addressing ethnic Armenian activists.

"The center wants to rush into Adzharia in tanks. They are preparing tanks, APCs and special forces to break in here. You all know what such things finish with. We saw it in Abkhazia and South Ossetia [self-proclaimed republics in Georgia]. There was merciless shooting there. Now, they want to re-enact it all here. Khaindrava, [Georgian] Emergencies Minister, is saying, ‘We’ll enter Adzharia by force’," said President Abashidze.

"Provocative," Georgy Khaindrava, State Minister for Conflict Settlement, commented on his statement.

"A confrontation between the center and a particular region is no wonder when a leader of Abashidze’s sort is heading the region," he said to the media in Tbilisi.

"When such statements come from a political leader of his level, they show that he is desperately incompetent and blind to reality." More than that, Aslan Abashidze’s panicky address of today may be qualified as criminal instigation of strife, warned the minister.