Russia, Georgia reopen vital border crossing
Bitter regional rivals Georgia and Russia reopened their only usable land border crossing Monday, restoring a vital transport route that had been closed since 2006.
The reopening of the crossing -- known as Verkhny Lars in Russia and Darial Gorge in Georgia -- is expected primarily to benefit Armenia, which had relied on it for trade with Russia, its key economic partner.
The crossing reopened at 7:00 am (0300 GMT) with a brief pre-dawn ceremony. Afterwards, border police sat in roadside booths waiting for travellers but more than three hours later, none had arrived.
The checkpoint runs through a narrow pass in the Caucasus Mountains, about 170 kilometres (105 miles) from the Georgian capital Tbilisi, amid craggy snow-covered peaks.
It is the only land border crossing that does not pass through Georgia's Russian-backed rebel regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which were the focus of the bitter Georgia-Russia war in 2008.
Moscow and Tbilisi late last year reached a deal under Swiss and Armenian mediation to reopen the checkpoint.
Georgian deputy foreign minister Nino Kalandadze said that the opening "does not mean warming" in ties with Moscow and that Georgia's consent "was motivated exclusively by our will to give a helping hand to our neighbour Armenia."
"The opening of the crossing will not have significant economic or political consequences for Georgia," Kalandadze said.
"But it is a positive fact that the differences between Georgia and Russia did not impede the opening."
An EU official expressed hope that the opening bodes well for regional stability.
"If a border is closed, there is no interaction, period. With the border open, there is discussion, and that's important," said Robin Liddell, a member of an EU delegation that visited Darial Gorge on Monday.
A spokesman for Russian border guards, Alexander Solod, confirmed that the corresponding checkpoint on the Russian side had opened, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported.
The crossing will be open to citizens of countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a grouping of ex-Soviet states, as long as they do not require visas for either Russia or Georgia.
Georgian and Russian citizens will need visas, which they can obtain from the respective Swiss embassies in Tbilisi and Moscow, where the two countries maintain interest sections.
In Stepantsminda, a small Georgian town near the border, residents said the opening would make no difference to their lives due to the visa restrictions.
"It does not do us any good. We can't go without visas.... This has nothing to do with us, they are only doing this for Armenia," local resident Tina Gujaraidze, 53, told AFP.
Russia closed the checkpoint in July 2006 in a move Georgian officials said was motivated by tensions over Tbilisi's efforts to build closer ties with the West. Moscow has said the crossing was closed for repairs.
The two ex-Soviet neighbours fought a brief war in August 2008 over South Ossetia and tensions have been high between them ever since.
Armenia's borders with its neighbours Azerbaijan and Turkey have been closed for years and the small South Caucasus country is dependent on trade with Russia.
Russia also cut air links with Georgia during the 2008 war. Several charter flights were allowed to operate between the two countries in January, but full air links have not yet been restored.
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