By Tara Bahrampour
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 11, 2008

KARALETI, Georgia, Sept. 10 -- A Georgian police officer was shot dead Wednesday at a roadblock near a Russian position in this town, two days after Russia agreed to start pulling troops out of Georgia's undisputed territory.

Sgt. Kakha Tsotniashvili was shot twice about 10 a.m. as he stood at the Georgian roadblock, about 200 yards from a Russian one along the tense line where Georgia's control ends and Russia's begins.

Georgian officials said Russian troops did not allow them to cross the line to investigate the shooting, which occurred about five miles north of the strategic town of Gori. Some Russian officials suggested it had not happened, Georgians said.

In an interview, a soldier at the Russian roadblock said six or seven people entered the area by a way that circumvented the Russian position, fired about four shots at the Georgian side and returned to the Russian side. He said Russian peacekeepers had given chase, unsuccessfully.

That account suggested the shooting was the work of people from the separatist South Ossetia region. Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said that "it could easily have been Russians" and speculated that they wanted Georgians to return fire so as to open the way for an accusation that Georgia had breached a month-old cease-fire. Georgians did not return fire, Utiashvili said.

The shots were fired minutes before a visit to the roadblock by Ukraine's deputy prime minister and its ambassador to Georgia.

On Monday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to withdraw troops from undisputed Georgian territory by mid-October. On Tuesday, the Kremlin announced it would maintain about 7,600 troops in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another separatist area, a move that State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Wednesday would violate the cease-fire agreement.

"These guys are trying to, at every turn, trying to wiggle out of a commitment they made," McCormack said Wednesday. "They need to get out of Georgia, and they need to stop finding excuses."

Utiashvili dismissed reports that Russians are beginning to dismantle positions in the Black Sea port of Poti, saying, "Until they abandon a checkpoint, it's hard to know."

In The Hague, Russia asked the International Court of Justice on Wednesday to dismiss a case brought by Georgia alleging human rights violations and ethnic attacks from 1990 to 2008, the Reuters news service reported. The court had begun hearings on Monday.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili visited refugees and inspected reconstruction efforts Wednesday in Gori. The city has undergone a rapid facelift since Russian planes bombed it and occupying troops smashed windows and looted stores in August. By Wednesday, the shattered plate-glass windows of banks and a casino on the main square had been replaced, bombed apartment blocks were being repainted, and residents could be seen cleaning the windows of their apartments.

But military bases in Gori had been more severely damaged and remained a shambles.