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Last Updated: Oct 28th, 2008 - 17:57:18 |
SUKHUMI, Georgia (Reuters) - The death toll from a blast that ripped through a crowded cafe in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia late on Sunday has risen to four, the latest violence in a conflict that has raised concerns in the West.
Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which turned away from central rule after wars in the early 1990s, are the focus of growing tension between Tbilisi and Moscow, which supports the separatists.
The blast, in the town of Gali near the de facto border with Georgia, killed a local security chief, a translator from the local United Nations mission and two others, separatist officials said on Monday.
Georgian officials said six explosions struck on both sides of the border on Sunday.
The separatists and Russia, which backs Abkhazia, say Tbilisi is trying to stir up trouble in the region and that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili wants to restore control over the provinces by force.
Georgia, a staunch U.S. ally which is seeking NATO membership, says Moscow is seeking to annex the regions, where Russia has peacekeepers. It accuses Moscow of using the separatists to deliberately fuel tensions.
U.S. President George W. Bush raised Russia's relations with Georgia with President Dmitry Medvedev at a meeting on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido, northern Japan.
"The U.S. president asked the traditional questions about the situation in Georgia. President Medvedev told him about his contacts with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili," Medvedev's foreign policy advisor, Sergei Prikhodko, told reporters.
"Dmitry Anatolyevich (Medvedev) told Bush that we are committed to normalising relations with Georgia, but unfortunately do not see an appropriate will coming from our Georgian partners."
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