Vano Merabishvili, State Security Minister, and Levan Nikolaishvili, Deputy Chief of the Defence Ministry General Staff, appeared on the site today.
The action involves three parts of Georgia-Kacheti, Tusheti and Khevsureti. Observers of the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) and the US and French embassies to Georgia, and envoys of Russia's military and law enforcement bodies are monitoring the developments.
Russian officers were invited to monitor Pankisi Gorge action, Georgia's State Security Ministry PR said to RIA Novosti. The monitoring concerns the Daghestani and Ingush stretches of the Russian-Georgian frontier. Daghestan and Ingushetia, Russia's North Caucasian republics, both border on Chechnya.
"The operation aims to show to each and every that Georgia's law enforcement bodies have the situation in control, and there is no chance for terrorists and paramilitary units to find shelter in the Pankisi Gorge," says a State Security Ministry spokesman.
No arrests and detentions have been made during the operation-"there was merely no need to detain anyone," Levan Nikolaishvili remarked to RIA Novosti.
The action will take another several days.
A sizeable number of Chechen refugees have settled in the Pankisi Gorge, close to the Chechen stretch of the Russian-Georgian frontier. Militants may be hiding among them, Russia said with alarm on numerous occasions within preceding years.
