Not militants, but refugees from Syria in Georgia

Victoria Panfilova, Nezavisimaya Gazeta. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza

The Interior Ministry of Georgia needed almost a week to call Fars News Agency’s (FNA) message about a group of Chechen militants in the Pankisi Gorge “a spoof story.”

According to FNA information, 97 militants, natives of the North Caucasus and Saudis who took part in battles in Syria against Assad, were transported to the Pankisi Gorge through Turkey in order to penetrate into Russian territory and commit terrorist attacks. FNA even reported about the flights which the militants used. The information agency says that the group is militarily experienced, as it has been fighting in Syria for 3 years and is one of the most effective forces.

The report contains interesting details. For instance, it says that some of the militants who fought against the Syrian regime arrived secretly in Kiev. Later they were sent to Eastern Ukraine and fought against pro-Russian forces near the town of Kramotorsk together with Ukrainian troops. As for “Georgian militants”, they are going to rest in the Pankisi Gorge for a while, and then they will begin to fulfil their tasks.

This information was being spread through Facebook for a week, until finally the Georgian official structures reacted to it. By that time Georgian journalists had already visited the Pankisi Gorge, a region of residence of Kists, ethnic Chechens and refugees from Chechnya; they talked to the local population, but didn’t find evidence that a hundred militants had come to the Gorge. However, the silence of the official structures was suspicious, considering the events of 15-20 years ago, when the Georgian authorities denied the presence of militants on the territory of the Pankisi Gorge, but later it was found out that not only common militants, but top terrorists lived there.

Today the Georgian authorities strictly control the region of the Pankisi Gorge. Primarily this concerns refugees from Chechnya who were issued Georgian citizenship. The steps are strict, but reasonable. In June Georgia is going to sign an association agreement with the EU. Of course it doesn’t want a repetition of the Ukrainian scenario, as the crisis began due to this matter. That is why Tbilisi is not interested in confrontation with Moscow, even though Zurab Abashidze, Georgian envoy for talks with Russia, received oral guarantees from his colleague Georgy Karasin that Moscow wouldn’t prevent rapprochement between Georgia and the EU. Moreover, the Western structures warn about this all the time. For example, the NATO Secretary General stated that, as the date of signing the agreement was approaching, Russia might increase pressure on Georgia to prevent the signing. The Foreign Minister of Georgia, Maya Pandzhikidze, noted that the authorities tried to avoid conflicts with Russia, but that they “attentively monitored provocations in the frontier zones of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.”

The publication by FNA could be explained by rating the interests of the agency, but for the already-mentioned agreement between Georgia and the EU. Moreover, we should pay attention to improving contacts between Moscow and Tehran.

Alexander Rusetsky, the head of the Caucasus Institute for Regional Security, thinks that FNA’s information is not accidental. “Moscow, Tehran and Ankara provide a policy of elimination of non-regional players in the Black Sea region,” Rusetsky told Vestnik Kavkaza. According to the political scientist, the Ukrainian events confirm the geopolitical confrontation. The geopolitical extremism of all the participants in the process and the low level of international political culture are the reasons for the growing crisis in the region. “Georgia is not interested in an escalation of tension with Russia. So the information about militants from Syria arriving in the Pankisi Gorge to provide anti-Russian terrorist activity confirms a new wave of the information confrontation. Tehran is trying to cause a new Georgian-Russian conflict, hoping for a weakening of Western influence in Georgia. The main message of the information campaign is that, despite the change of power, Georgia is still a threat to the interests of Russia and Iran,” Rusetsky thinks.

The expert says that the formal reason for the information is the fact that Georgia welcomed 700 refugees from Syria last year. This year 300 new refugees have arrived in Georgia.