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http://www.easybourse.com/bourse-actualite/marches/update-s-ossetia-reports-new-violence-says-georgia-to-invade-501835
(Adds rebels saying Georgia plans invasion)
MOSCOW (AFP)--South Ossetia said it came under renewed fire early Thursday from Georgian positions, after the leader of the breakaway region rejected plans for direct talks with Tbilisi this week, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.
Meanwhile, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti said on its Web site that South Ossetia's de facto president, Eduard Kokoity, has claimed Georgia is planning a full-scale invasion of the rebel region this month.
The report said, without citing a source, that Kokoity told British Ambassador to Georgia Denis Keefe: "We have indisputable evidence that a large-scale military operation will start here by September."
Kokoity said Georgian authorities have been issuing warnings to residents of Georgian villages in South Ossetia that Tbilisi will seize the areas by September. However, he said volunteers from abroad would flood into South Ossetia to defend it.
Georgia has dismissed widespread fears of all-out war in the region. It says that Russia tacitly supports South Ossetia and that both are trying to create a false impression of escalating violence.
On Thursday, rebel authorities quoted by Interfax said several villages in the mountain province and its capital, Tskhinvali, had been targeted overnight by Georgian heavy weaponry and automatic arms fire.
One person was wounded in the shooting, which started shortly after midnight, South Ossetia's information committee said.
The rebel region's defense ministry said the village of Dmenis suffered the worst of the firing, with 20% of its buildings destroyed.
Ossetian forces had to return fire, a ministry official said.
Kokoity had told Interfax on Wednesday that "there will be no bilateral meeting on Thursday."
"We are ready to carry on negotiations in Tskhinvali, but only in the four-party format," he said.
Georgian and Russian officials had previously announced that the first bilateral talks in a decade would be held Thursday in Tskhinvali.
Tbilisi has rejected talks under the established four-party format, which consists of negotiators from Georgia, Russia, South Ossetia and Russia's North Ossetia region. Georgia says the format is biased in favor of the rebels.
The South Ossetian government's Web site said earlier that four Ossetian villages had come under heavy fire Wednesday.
It also said Georgian special forces had tried to seize high ground over a strategic road, but had been repulsed by rebel militia. It said it had destroyed a Georgian armored personnel carrier during the battle, but Tbilisi denied the claim.
Georgian Ministry of Interior spokesman Shota Utiashvili said Georgian forces had only returned fire after Ossetian positions shelled Georgian-controlled villages.
The regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia broke away from Georgian control after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The fighting killed thousands of people and forced tens of thousands of others to flee their homes.
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