In his latest report issued on January 20 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan noted that with dialogue in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict frozen for much of last year, the UN Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) remains vital in preventing a flare-up of the hostilities in the breakaway region and recommended the UN Security Council to prolong the UNOMIG mandate for further six months, the UN press centre reported.

Kofi Annan stressed, that the Abkhaz side has for the past several years refused to receive a paper on distributing "competences" between the two parties, invoking its unilateral "declaration of independence" of 1999.

UNOMIG, which consists of 130 uniformed personnel, including 119 military observers and 11 civilian police supported by 103 international civilian personnel and 184 local civilian staff, was established in 1994 after an accord reached in Moscow ended the fighting.