Georgia on high alert

GEORGIA’S military was put on alert yesterday as tensions between the president, Mikhail Saakashvili, and the breakaway province of Adzharia escalated when he was refused entry to the region during an electioneering tour.

Mr Saakashvili also closed the airspace over the region but pledged to rein in the unruly Black Sea region without bloodshed. The Adzharian leader, Aslan Abashidze, has long defied the Georgian authorities, and the new tension stoked fears of hostilities such as those that led to devastating wars in two other rebellious provinces that broke away in the early 1990s.

Mr Abashidze, who was in Moscow yesterday, claimed that during a phone conversation, Mr Saakashvili threatened to shoot down his plane if he tried to return to Adzharia.

"I responded by promising to tell him personally the hour of departure and the number of my flight," Mr Abashidze said. "Let him do it."

The Georgian interior minister, Georgy Baramidze, said yesterday that Mr Saakashvili had sealed Adzharia’s air space. He said Mr Saakashvili told Mr Abashidze during the phone call that measures would be taken to "restore the central government’s authority" over Adzharia.

Mr Saakashvili’s plane left for the Adzharian capital Batumi last night with 20 Russian journalists aboard. Russia, which has dismayed Georgia by expressing support for Mr Abashidze, warned Mr Saakashvili strongly against using force.

"In the event of a crisis, all responsibility would lie with the Georgian leadership," a foreign ministry spokesman, Alexander Yakovenko, said.

Georgia, with about five million people, regards its giant northern neighbour with a concern that is sharpened by the presence of two Russian military bases left over from the Soviet era, one of them in Adzharia. Mr Saakashvili told Russia to stay out of the conflict.

"Not one Russian tank should move from the base’s territory," he said.

"This is not their country, this is our country and any such move would lead to disaster and tragedy."

Mr Saakashvili, who was elected in January, has vowed to rein in Adzharia, which has run its own affairs, withholding tax payments to the central government and otherwise refusing to co-operate with Tbilisi.

Accompanied by officials and 30 bodyguards, he had originally headed to Adzharia yesterday for campaign appearances ahead of Georgia’s 28 March parliamentary elections, but said his motorcade was stopped by 100 gunmen who refused him entry.

A warning shot was fired by Adzharian gunmen.

Mr Saakashvili then went to the nearby Poti region to meet security officials. He said he put the military at the highest level of alert and ordered security agencies to take all measures to prevent "the disintegration of Georgia".