Abkhazia confirms plane went down in Georgia

TBILISI, Aug 25 (Reuters) Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia confirmed today that an unknown plane went down over its territory this week.

Abkhazia's Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba told Reuters that according to information from witnesses the plane came from the Black Sea and went down two minutes later in the mountains in Upper Abkhazia.

''We believe it was a Georgian plane. It has in the past repeatedly violated our airspace. It went down by itself, no one downed it,'' Shamba said.

Upper Abkhazia is a small mountainous region which is controlled by Georgia.

Abkhazia broke away from Georgia in 1993 after the Soviet Union collapsed. Georgia seeks to regain control over Abkhazia and accuses Russia of supporting the separatist government.

Interfax news agency earlier quoted the head of Abkhazia's general staff Anatoly Zaitsev as saying the plane might have been a US spy plane.

Shamba denied it: ''No one wants to recognise it is their plane but this assumption is not based on fact.'' Georgia's interior ministry said yesterday it had fired at a Russian airplane on Wednesday after it violated its airspace and could have downed it.

But today Georgia said it had only fired a warning shot.

''We fired a warning shot ... on August 22 after our airspace was violated. The flight was then terminated,'' the head of the ministry's administration Shota Khizanishvili told reporters without saying that the plane was Russian.

Georgian officials say the area is difficult to access. The ministry was due to send a helicopter to the area today to investigate.

The incident marks an intensification of a row between the two countries in which Georgia has accused Russian planes of violating its border and of dropping a missile near Tbilisi.

Russia called the Georgian statement a provocation. It has not reported any plane missing, and denied its planes have ever violated Georgia's border.

REUTERS RAR RN1945