By Patrick Worsnip UNITED NATIONS, July 8 (Reuters) - Russia put a draft resolution before the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday calling on Georgia to defuse tensions with breakaway Abkhazia after a deadly weekend bomb blast in the region. The text, made available to journalists, expressed deep concern over Sunday's bombing -- one of several in the area that day -- which killed four people in the town of Gali, one of them a translator from the local United Nations mission. The draft broadly followed the text of a Security Council resolution in April renewing the mandate of the U.N. mission and calling for moves to resolve the Georgian-Abkhazian dispute. But unlike that document, the new Russian one laid the onus on Georgia. It demanded "the Georgian side take urgent steps" to ensure that no unauthorized troops were present in the flashpoint Kodori Valley, where the de facto border between Georgia and Abkhazia runs. It also urged both sides, "in particular Tbilisi," to address each other's legitimate security concerns and refrain from acts of violence or provocation. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Abkhazia broke away from Georgian rule in the early 1990s and is now the focus of growing tension between Tbilisi and Moscow, which supports the separatists although it has not formally recognized Abkhazia. The separatists and Russia say Tbilisi is trying to stir up trouble in the region and that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili wants to restore control over Abkhazia by force. Georgia, a staunch U.S. ally seeking NATO membership, says Russia wants to annex the region and accuses Moscow of using the separatists to deliberately fuel tensions. Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters there was "reason to believe that (Sunday's bomb blasts) were of Georgian origin" and there was a "concerted effort" by Tbilisi to derail efforts for a peace settlement. The Russian draft received little immediate attention from the Security Council, whose main business of the day was a draft resolution on Zimbabwe, but Churkin said experts were expected to look at it on Wednesday. The existing text looked unlikely to win the approval of the United States, which is critical of Moscow's Georgia policy. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who visits Tbilisi later this week, said on Tuesday that Russian behavior towards Georgia and Abkhazia had exacerbated tensions. (Editing by John O'Callaghan)
An activist waves a bunch of keys during a rally to protest a plan to build a U.S. missile defence shield in Czech Republic, at Prague's Hradcanske Square July 8, 2008. ...
