Russia may cancel military talks with NATO

Russia threatened on Monday to call off a meeting of senior military commanders with NATO next month if the alliance went ahead with planned exercises in ex-Soviet Georgia, Interfax news agency reported. "If we see no reaction (to Russia's protests about the exercises) ... the Russia-NATO meeting of the chiefs of staff planned for May 7 will not take place," Interfax quoted Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's envoy to NATO, as saying. NATO spokesman James Appathurai said there were no plans to cancel the exercise. "As far as NATO is concerned, nothing has changed," he said. "The meeting of chiefs of defence will take place and Russia is invited, and preparations for the exercise continue...Russia describes the exercises as NATO support for Georgia, a crucial transit route for Caspian Sea oil and gas to Europe, and long controlled by Moscow.

NATO says it does not understand why Moscow is upset by the plans for exercises, which will involve 19 countries from May 6 to June 1.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The pro-Russian breakaway region of South Ossetia has detained several observers from the OSCE for illegally crossing the Georgian-South Ossetian border, a separatist official told Reuters on Tuesday.

"OSCE representatives were detained on South Ossetian territory for illegal border crossing," Irina Gagloyeva said, without giving further details. She was unable to say how many observers had been held.

An OSCE spokeswoman confirmed separately that two OSCE military observers had been detained by South Ossetian forces.

Two OSCE monitors were released by the authorities in breakaway South Ossetia two and a half hours after their detention on April 21.

Breakaway South Ossetia’s authorities said the two observers were detained “for illegal crossing of the South Ossetia’s border.”

OSCE said that two of its unarmed monitors - one Hungarian and one Turkish national – were detained “near” the village of Nikozi. The village, which is under the Georgian control, is located in an immediate vicinity of the breakaway region’s administrative border.

Gunfire exchanged on Georgia-South Ossetia border

April 23, 2009 07:04 EDT TBILISI, Georgia (AP) -- Georgia and its breakaway region of South Ossetia have reported gunfire exchanges along their tense administrative border. No casualties have been reported. The reported shootings occurred before talks with international monitors Thursday on efforts to diffuse tensions in the region following last year's war between Georgia and Russia, which backs South Ossetia. Georgia's Interior Ministry says a police post in the village of Plavi came under automatic weapon fire for several minutes Wednesday night. South Ossetia's separatist government says about two hours later heavy-caliber weapons were fired on the village of Otrev, where about 15 families live. A government spokeswoman says villagers sought safety in nearby woods.

SOssetian village fired at from Georgia

TSKHINVAL, April 24 (Itar-Tass) --A South Ossetian village came under machine-gun fire from the territory of Georgia on Thursday night, Ibrahim Gasseev, South Ossetian Deputy Defence Minister, told Itar-Tass on Friday. According to his information, “a Cobra armoured vehicle moved from the Georgian village of Dirbi towards the South Ossetian border at about 01.00 on Thursday night. The village of Velit, Znauri District of South Ossetia, was fired at from a large-calibre machine-gun off the armoured vehicle.” Gasseev said that “international military observers stated on many occasions that Georgia did not have large-calibre weapons in the zone of their responsibility, and that it needs Cobra armoured vehicles only for police patrolling.” “Such provocations have taken place many times of late. We shall take adequate measures in the future,” he said.