Breakaway Abkhazia to host Russian bases

By Denis Dyomkin

SUKHUMI, Georgia (Reuters) - Georgia's separatist region of Abkhazia plans to sign a deal allowing Russia to build two new military bases there despite protests from the European Union and the United States, Abkhaz officials said.

Abkhazia threw off Georgian rule in the 1990s and hopes the Russian bases will help guarantee its independence from Tbilisi. Only Russia and Nicaragua have recognized Abkhazia as a sovereign state.

Moscow's military presence is already visible in Abkhazia, an impoverished area running along the Black Sea coast.

A military unit, complete with huge radars, army tents and flying the flag of the Russian air force, has been deployed near the resort town of Gudauta where Moscow plans to revive a Soviet-era air base, a Reuters reporter saw.

Abkhaz Deputy Defense Minister Garry Kupalba said a military treaty with Russia could be signed for a 25-year period and include the training of Abkhaz officers in Russia.

"Great nations should undertake obligations to safeguard the security of small states," he told Reuters.

SERIOUS VIOLATION

Georgia sent troops to try to retake another separatist region -- South Ossetia -- last August, triggering a brief war with Russia. Moscow has pledged to station 7,600 soldiers in the two pro-Russian separatist areas "to prevent a repeat of military aggression by Tbilisi."

The European Union said a build-up of Russia's military presence in the breakaway regions would be "a serious violation of the principle of Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity" and would go against the spirit of the EU-brokered ceasefire which ended the August war.

But Moscow's military preparations are going ahead.

Russian contract sergeants with heavy knapsacks throng a border pass to Abkhazia. Numerous trucks and military police cars speed along a road snaking through the mountains. Two Russian warships patrol the sea near the region's palm tree-lined capital Sukhumi.

Moscow is keen to re-establish its military influence in the territory of the former Soviet Union and wants new bases abroad, while pressing its ally Kyrgyzstan to shut down a U.S. air base there.

A spokesman for the Abkhaz leadership said last week Sukhumi expects to sign a deal in a few months allowing Russia to establish a naval base in Ochamchire, at the border with Georgia proper, and an air base in Gudauta near Russia.

Russia rents military bases in ex-Soviet nations Ukraine and Tajikistan, and Abkhaz leaders say a military treaty with Moscow could set similar terms.

"This would be in line with realistic, normal and civilized relations," separatist Vice-President Raul Khadzhimba said.