South Ossetia threatens Georgia to shut off "TransKAM"

Today, reinforced concrete structures were brought to the border between the city of Tskhinval and Tamarasheni village. The head of the South-Ossetian part of the Mixed Control Commission (MCC) has named it "a warning" and stated that if Georgia did not stop its "mockery" on the Transcaucasian Motor Highway ("TransKAM"), South Ossetia would block off the road.

"We don't imply shutting the Highway off, it's just a warning," Boris Chochiev, head of the South-Ossetian part of the MCC, has commented the situation. "But if the Georgian party continues, at its illegally deployed registration posts of Georgian special services in Kekhvi and Tamarasheni, tormenting travellers of Ossetian nationality, by forcing them into queues for two-three hours and more, insulting, threatening, beating them and taking other provocative actions, which are the roughest violations of human rights, if it doesn't remove these posts n the shortest time, South Ossetia will, as I stated at the consultative meeting of MCC Co-Chairmen in Tskhinval on April 19, 2007, be forced to block off the road to prevent a possible aggravation of the situation in the conflict zone."

It has been already reported that after April 12, 2007, the situation in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone has become worse after the Georgian party announced total checks on the motor routes of South Ossetia running through the villages inhabited by Georgians.