Parliament To Vote on Peace Force

Russian troops set up checkpoints along the Georgian-Abkhaz border Monday, one day before a vote in the Russian parliament on whether to authorize their peacekeeping mission in the strife-torn Black Sea region.Commonwealth television showed Russian engineer brigades, some of them wearing the blue helmets of international peacekeeping troops, setting up border controls on the Inguri River that runs along Georgia's border with the breakaway republic."From a military point of view, the mission is ready," Deputy Defense Minister Georgy Kondratyev, who is overseeing the operationi, told Interfax.Whether the mission will go ahead rests on the vote planned for Tuesday in the Federation Council. President Boris Yeltsin's request to send peacekeepers to Georgia was rejected in May by one vote. Llawmakers complained that they did not have enough information.The council's committees on defense, foreign affairs and relations with the CIS held a three-hour hearing Monday on whether to recommend that the house approve the troops. Although the session was closed and its result undeclared, deputies were overheard expressing concern that the proposed number of troops, 3,000, would be inadequate. Konstantin Zatulin, the chairman of the lower house's committee on CIS affairs, said that the mission was necessary to head off further conflict. Abkhaz separatists drove Georgian forces from Abkhazia last autumn after 14 months of fighting in which 3,000 died. Although the sides agreed on a cease-fire in May, there has been sporadic fighting. Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze also praised the Russian mission Monday, saying it would be Georgia's "salvation." But his opponents in parliament call his sanctioning of the mission "capitulation" to Russia. Interfax reported Monday that 60 military transport aircraft were standing by to move two full battalions of Russian troops and their armored vehicles into the region from Leningrad and Volgograd regions. Two more battalions already stationed in the Caucasus were ready to enter the region, bringing the eventual Russian presence to 3,000 troops. The agency said that a group of vessels from the Black Sea Fleet had been brought in to backup the mission.Russia has sought in the past to gain United Nations peacekeeper status for their forces. But the UN, wary of Russia's intentions, has denied the request.