Russia Frees Three Georgian Spies
Russia has freed three Georgian spies who were arrested after the 2008 war, a Georgian official said Tuesday, signaling a nascent thaw between the arch-foes.
"Three people convicted in Russia as Georgian intelligence agents were freed recently," deputy foreign minister David Zalkaliani told a news conference, but declined to give further details.
Relations between Tbilisi and Moscow have thawed since the fervently pro-Western former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili's administration was replaced in 2013 by the Georgian Dream coalition's government.
Georgia's new leaders have said Tbilisi will try to mend ties with the Kremlin while pursuing its bid for full membership in the European Union and NATO.
Georgia's Interpress news agency, citing an anonymous official source, said a senior officer from the Foreign Intelligence Department, Zaza Kherkeladze, was among those freed.
Arrested in Russia in 2008, Kherkeladze was convicted in 2010 of espionage for Georgia and given an 11-year jail term.
As part of a major amnesty in January 2013, Georgia released several people -- including three Russians -- who were convicted of spying for Moscow.
Georgia's pro-Western policies have infuriated its Soviet-era master Russia since the small Caucasus nation regained independence with the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.
In the brief 2008 war, Russian troops swept into Georgia after Tbilisi launched a large-scale military operation against separatist forces in its pro-Russian South Ossetia region.
In the wake of the conflict, the Kremlin recognized both South Ossetia and another separatist territory, Abkhazia, as independent countries and stationed thousands of troops there in what Tbilisi and its Western allies decry as a de-facto occupation.
Tbilisi severed ties with Moscow in September 2008 and diplomatic relations have remained virtually non-existence since, but Georgia has said that trying to normalise relations is a priority.
Source: Agence France Presse
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