Georgia summons Russian envoy over soldiers

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Mon Jun 2, 2008 11:09am EDT

(Adds Georgian foreign minister's quote)

TBILISI, June 2 (Reuters) - Georgia summoned Russia's ambassador to its foreign ministry on Monday to protest against the deployment of about 400 Russian soldiers to repair damaged railway lines in the breakaway region of Abkhazia.

The United States has already expressed its dismay at Russia's decision to send the unarmed soldiers into the region on Saturday to rebuild rail routes damaged during a war between Abkhazia and Georgia in the 1990s.

"We demand an immediate withdrawal of the railway detachment and the additional, supposedly peacekeeping, contingent," Georgia's Foreign minister Eka Tkeshelashvili said after a meeting of the Georgian security council.

Georgia lies at the heart of the Caucasus where the United States and Russia are competing for influence. A major pipeline pumps oil across the region to Europe from Asia.

Russian soldiers patrol between Abkhazian and Georgian forces under the terms of a 1994 U.N. ceasefire which allowed Moscow to station up to 3,000 soldiers in the region.

Tbilisi has accused Moscow of siding with the rebels. Russia bolstered its peacekeepers in the region earlier this year because it said Georgia had been preparing to invade.

Russia's ambassador to Georgia, Vyacheslav Kovalenko, defended the military deployment or unarmed soldiers to repair the railway.

"Any humanitarian action for the restoration of bridges and railways is aimed at making the lives of people in the region better," he said.

"Any humanitarian action should be welcomed."

Georgia's foreign ministry has already complained to the Russian envoy dozens of times during the long-running dispute.

Georgia's Defence Minister Batu Kutelia told Reuters that Tbilisi opposed Russian soldiers being deployed to Abkhazia because civil organisations usually carry out humanitarian missions.

"The Russians are using military forces to restore a railway and this is absolutely different from a humanitarian operation," he said.

Georgia also wants to join NATO, which angers Russia. (Reporting by Niko Mchedlishvili, writing by James Kilner; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)

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