MOSCOW, November 30 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed its surprise Wednesday at some of the clauses in Georgia's new national defense strategy, drawn up as part of its partnership program with NATO.
Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin called the fact that Russia's military bases and peacekeeping contingents in Georgia were listed in the document among major military threats to Georgian statehood "bewildering, to say the very least."
He dismissed as absurd the allegation that Russia may use its military presence in Georgia to support the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia, Ajaria, and South Ossetia.
The spokesman said the Russian contingent had always served as a stabilizing force in the long-standing conflict between Tbilisi and the rebellious provincial governments, and cited the May 2004 events in Ajaria as a vivid example.
He also said the Russian military bases were providing significant social and economic support for the local communities.
Kamynin said Tbilisi was employing such rhetoric to justify its own political and economic failures, as well as its purchase of large quantities of armaments and military hardware.
Under an intergovernmental agreement reached earlier this year, the withdrawal of Russian military bases from Georgia will be completed in 2008.
