Georgia: Tbilisi Challenges Russian Allegations on Terrorism

Georgian parliamentary minority leader Giorgi Targamadze is calling for an international fact-finding initiative to discredit Russian accusations that Tbilisi cooperated with al Qaeda on operations designed to destabilize Russia's North Caucasus.

Russian Federal Security Services chief Alexander Bortnikov alleged earlier in October that Tbilisi "in cooperation with al Qaeda" is sending fighters and ammunition to Russia's restive republics of Chechnya and Dagestan.

Tbilisi vehemently denied the allegations. Even so, the allegation has sparked concerns about a return to the situation in 2002, when Russia used terrorism allegations as grounds to launch attacks in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, an area then being used as a safe haven by Chechen militants. The gorge borders on Chechnya.

Georgian officials assert that the area has long since lost any connection to Chechen fighters and to terrorism in general. Targamadze, head of the Christian Democrat Party and a former journalist, expressed concern that Moscow might use the al Qaeda cooperation accusation as grounds to attack Georgia, according to a report broadcast on Imedi television October 27.