Director of “International Center on Conflict and Negotiation” Gogi Khutsishvili assesses the change of geographical area of command and staff military exercises “Caucasus 2012” and transferring from borders of Georgia as a positive fact.
According to Hutsishvili’s statement, these doctrines, taking into account the pre-election period in Georgia, are extremely big factor of tension. “Obviously, they decided to transfer the teachings from the Georgian border, so that Russia could escape charges and prove that will not use them for the invasion of Georgia ” – said the expert.
Gogi Khutsishvili expressed confidence that Russia took this decision because of the great pressure of the international communities, the United States and the European Union. Newspaper “Izvestia” referring to a source in the RF Ministry of Defence reports that the geographical area of the exercises “Caucasus 2012” is removed from Chechen territory thus exercises will not be held near the state border of Georgia.
Note that the Georgian Foreign Ministry has the same information about the change of the place for the exercises “Caucasus 2012”, which is disclosed by high-ranking representatives of Russia. The Deputy Minister of foreign affairs of Georgia Nino Kalandadze declared this at a briefing today. “Despite what statements are being made, we always have a reason to be cautious.” said Kalandadze. She noted that it is better to wait for development of events and then to do assessments.