RUSSIAN BORDER TROOPS COMMAND SET TO REOPEN DISPUTE WITH GEORGIA.

The command of Russia’s border troops announced yesterday that it would propose to President Boris Yeltsin that the Upper Larsi border post be moved forward, to the location from which it had been withdrawn last month. The command made that decision following a senior staff conference held over the weekend on the Russian-Georgian border. It claimed that moving the post forward is necessary in order to stop unauthorized imports of alcohol into Russia via the Georgia Military Highway. (Russian agencies, January 10-11)

Last month, Yeltsin settled a political and diplomatic confrontation with Georgia by ordering the border troops to withdraw the Upper Larsi post 1.3 kilometers into undisputed Russian territory. The border troops’ command attempted to resist Yeltsin’s order; that resistance was one of the factors behind the dismissal of Gen. Andrei Nikolaev as chief of Russia’s Federal Border Service. It now looks as if the command is prepared to reopen the issue. Moscow and Tbilisi are to negotiate over that border area, which Georgia regards as its own.

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