Georgian President Saakashvili to award deputies deported from Belarus

Georgian President Saakashvili is proud with the Georgian deputies deported from Belarus, who, as part of the international OSCE mission, were to monitor presidential elections in Belarus.

"I am proud with your actions because none of you, despite the pressure, has given in," stated Saakashvili on Sunday night during the meeting with a group of Georgian deputies. The Georgian leader noted thereat that "the forces which detained you are fighting with us on our territory."

In their turn, the deputies who had been involved in the incident informed the president that, "while in custody at Minsk airport," they sang the Georgian anthem five times a day. Saakashvili liked it and promised to award the deputies. As was reported earlier, nine deputies of the Georgian parliament flew to Minsk on March 16 as part of the OSCE group of international observers, however, the Belarusian authorities did not let the Georgian MPs on the territory of the country.

The republic's authorities explained the prohibition for the Georgian deputies to enter Belarus by the current resolution of the government which defines the rules of stay for foreign citizens and stateless persons on the republic's territory. As a representative of the State Committee on Border Troops explained to the "Interfax" with reference to one of the items of the said rule, "the agencies which make the decision on refusing the entry to Belarus are not obliged to inform the foreigners on reasons and justifications of the adopted decision."

While commenting on the fact of detainment of several Georgian observers, Sergey Martynov, Belarusian Minister of Foreign Affairs, stated that "the citizens of Georgia detained at the Minsk airport were not observers." "According to Belarusian legislation, only those persons may act as observers who have obtained proper accreditation," explained the Minister.

Meanwhile, David Kirkitadze, one of the detained deputies, relayed to the journalists: "We were interrogated by officers of Belarusian secret services as witnesses on the case on the organization of terrorist acts in the course of presidential elections in Belarus, ostensibly planned by Georgian citizens, in particular, by Guivi Targamadze, chairman of the Committee on Defence and National Security at the Georgian Parliament."

According to Bidzina Breghadze, also a deputy deported from Minsk, representatives of Belarusian secret services made "an absurd" accusation about false passports of the detained Georgian MPs.

Earlier, Stepan Sukharenko, head of the Belarusian KGB said that the terrorist acts planned on the day of presidential elections in Belarus had been prepared in Georgia. At the press-conference in Minsk Sukharenko showed a video record with testimony of one of the detained persons who confessed that he "had been trained in the Georgian camp of "Kmara" where four Arabs and former Soviet army officers were among teachers, and a Georgian MSS colonel came to take examinations."