TBILISI, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Georgia has released seven Abkhazian fighters captured over a month ago in a clash at the border with the breakaway region, a Georgian Interior Ministry official said on Saturday. "Tbilisi city court released seven Abkhaz militants, having passed five-year suspended sentences on them," Shota Untiashvili, head of the Interior Ministry's analytical department, told Reuters. "They are now in the United Nations office in Tbilisi and will be handed over to the Abkhazian side today." The rebels were detained on Sept. 20 during a shootout in a disputed gorge. Georgia and Abkhazia have given different versions of the clash in the Kodori gorge, a gateway to the Black Sea province of Abkhazia, which has enjoyed de facto independence from Tbilisi since 1993. Georgian officials say Abkhazian rebels crossed into the Georgian part of the gorge and opened fire on policemen there. They fired back, killing two Abkhazian fighters who later turned out to be Russian citizens. Abkhaz officials have said Georgian servicemen crossed into the Abkhazian part of the gorge and opened fire. Relations between Tbilisi and Russia, its former Soviet master, have soured over Moscow's support for Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Tbilisi lost control over the regions in wars in the 1990s. Russia's already ice-cold relations with its tiny Caucasus neighbour plunged to a new low in August when Tbilisi accused Moscow of dropping a missile on Georgian territory.
