About a dozen Georgian civilians, detained by the South Ossetian militiamen on Tuesday, were released later on December 6, but three Georgian policemen and one civilian are still being detained by the South Ossetian side, Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said.

“We do not want a confrontation, we want to completely follow the [South Ossetian] peace plan which we have and not to thwart it. That is why we are refraining from taking radical steps, but everyone knows, they [South Ossetian side] know, that if they do not release these Georgian citizens, this step [detention of policemen and civilian] will result in a high cost for them,” Merabishvili said.

“I guarantee that they [the four men] will be released,” he added.

The exact number of men initially detained men was not reported, and ranged from 10-20 in various reports.

These detentions follow the arrest of a South Ossetian police official by the Georgian Military Police in the conflict zone on December 5. Viacheslav Kudziev, deputy chief of police in the Ossetian village of Artsevi, was injured in a shootout with a unit from the Georgian Military Police, when the latter tried to arrest him near the Georgian village of Ergneti.