Georgia Envoy Shut Out Of UN Security Council Meeting

(RFE/RL) UNITED NATIONS, March 29, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- The Georgian ambassador to the United Nations has been prevented from taking part in a Security Council session on the situation between Georgia and Abkhazia.

In a news conference late on March 28 at the UN in New York, envoy Revaz Adamia blamed Moscow for keeping him out of the session -- and for what he called its repeated attempts to conceal the truth about Abkhazia, a separatist republic in Georgia:

“The answer for this is very clear -- the position of the Russian Federation," Adamia said. "It is not the first time that the Russian Federation is blocking a Georgian representative to speak at a council meeting. Is the Georgian ambassador so dangerous for Russia? What [can the] Georgian ambassador say that the Russian delegation not like so much?”

The March 28 council meeting did not produce a new resolution on extending the mandate of the UN Observer Mission in Georgia, or UNOMIG. But a text is expected to be adopted on March 30 after further consultations.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called on the Security Council to extend the UNOMIG mandate for six more months, through September 2006.