MOSCOW ASSAILS SHEVARDNADZE AND GEORGIAN FOREIGN POLICY CONCEPT.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Valery Nesterushkin yesterday attacked "anti-Russian forces" in Tbilisi who accuse Moscow of "not lifting a finger to implement the March 28 CIS decision" on repatriating Georgian refugees to Abkhazia. The spokesman was quoting verbatim President Eduard Shevardnadze’s May 5 address. Those Tbilisi "forces are exerting severe pressure to shatter Russian-Georgian friendship," Nesterushkin went on.

The spokesman also denounced "the so-called foreign policy conception" adopted by the Georgian parliament last month on the initiative of its chairman, Zurab Zhvania. The document "subverts cooperation between the Russian and Georgian peoples" by describing Tsarist Russia’s policy in Georgia and current Russian policy in Abkhazia as one of "annexation and occupation," the spokesman charged. (Interfax, May 8) In Abkhazia yesterday the unrecognized government’s new "prime minister," Sergei Bagpash, asserted that "active integration with Russia will become the main direction of the new Abkhaz government’s policy." (RIA, May 8)

Tajik Opposition Group Controls Dushanbe Outskirts.