Separatist standoff

last updated 8 January 2015

Adzharia, Georgia

Georgia imposed a blockade on the Muslim separatist region of Adzharia this week, in an attempt to end an armed standoff. The region, on the Black Sea coast, has been largely autonomous since the early 1990s, when Adzharians, backed by Russia, drove the Georgians out in a bloody civil war. President Mikhail Saakashvili, who has vowed to reassert Georgian sovereignty, tried to enter the region this week but was turned away by gunmen. “My dear people, calm down,” he said. “Aren’t you part of Georgia?” When they refused to let him pass, he put the military on alert. Adzharian leader Aslan Abashidze appealed to Russia to “stop the invasion forces.”