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Russian soldiers - Source: Reuters -
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Georgia said on Tuesday a Russian-planned coup plot had been
uncovered within the military of the former Soviet republic and a
rebellion was under way at a military base near the capital.
The Interior Ministry said those involved in the plot had received
money from Russia which has criticised NATO military exercises in
Georgia due to begin on Wednesday.
"The main aim of this uprising was to disrupt the NATO military
exercises," Defence Minister David Sikharulidze told said. "We are
in negotiations with the soldiers at the Mukhrovani base and I hope
this uprising will end soon."
Sikharulidze said the commanders of the military base 19 km from
the capital Tbilisi had been dismissed and the soldiers confined to
barracks.
The Interior Ministry said one person had been arrested.
"They (the plotters) were receiving money from Russia," ministry
spokesman Shota Utiashvili told a news conference. "It seems it was
coordinated with Russia."
Last August Russia and Georgia fought a five-day war when Moscow
crushed a Georgian assault on pro-Russia South Ossetia.
That slammed the brakes on Georgia's bid for membership of NATO
which the Kremlin fiercely opposes as an encroachment on its
ex-Soviet backyard.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has been the target of weeks
of opposition protests in Tbilisi over his record on democracy and
the war with Russia.
ITAR-Tass news agency quoted an unnamed Russian security source as
rejecting suggestions Moscow was behind the Georgian coup. "This is
a nightmare and an agony for the Saakashvili regime," he said. "One
cannot describe this in a different way."
NATO declines comment
NATO declined to comment on the news out of Georgia.
NATO's military exercises this week are a gesture of solidarity
condemned by Russia as "muscle-flexing".
Around 1,000 soldiers from over a dozen NATO member states and
partners will practice "crisis response" at a Georgian army base
east of Tbilisi, around 70 km from the nearest Russian troop
positions in breakaway South Ossetia.
The month-long exercises at a former Russian air force base in
Vaziani are seen as a signal from the 28-member alliance that,
despite doubts over the promise of eventual membership, Georgia has
not been forgotten.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the decision to go ahead
with the exercises was wrong and dangerous.
"I want to specifically stress that responsibility for possible
negative consequences of these decisions will fully rest on the
shoulders of those who made them and carry them out," he said on
Friday.
NATO and Russia last week resumed formal contacts suspended over
the war when the West accused Moscow of a "disproportionate"
response to Georgia's assault on separatists in South
Ossetia.
But the exercises, coupled with the expulsion last week of two
Russian diplomats from NATO over a spying scandal and a Russian
decision to take control of South Ossetia's borders, had put the
relationship under renewed pressure.
The next round of talks between Russia and Georgia on South
Ossetia, shepherded by the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), European Union and United Nations, is
due to be held in Geneva in May 18-19.
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