The Georgian parliament passed a resolution Tuesday advising the government to suspend peacekeeping operations in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and take urgent measures to introduce international peacekeepers.
"Should Georgia drive Russian peacekeepers out after all, this would be fraught with a resumption of clashes and hostilities and a repetition of the 1992-94 situation," said Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee, referring to fighting that broke out in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse.
He said the Georgian parliament's resolution had no legal force since the peacekeepers were there under international mandate.
"Georgia is only one of the parties to a multipartite process," he said.
"Peacekeepers are out there not to attain a political settlement, but to prevent bloodshed and they are performing this role brilliantly," he said.
