Russia is insisting on imposing “broad international embargo” on supply of arms to Georgia, Gregory Karasin, the Russian deputy foreign minister, said in an interview with the Russian news agency, Itar-Tass.

“It can be said today, that many of those, who were active supplies of arms to Georgia in the past, have analyzed policy of the current leadership in Tbilisi and reconsidered their approach,” Karasin said in the interview published on August 4.

“But the problem is still too far from being resolved,” he added.

He said that some "patrons of ‘Georgian democracy’" were still trying to re-arm Georgia "under the various pretexts and to engage them in various international operations.”

“So we continue insisting on imposing broad international embargo on supply of, first and foremost, offensive weapons and military equipment. Such a measure would significantly reduce threat of recurrence of Georgian aggression,” Karasin said.

In an interview with Israel's daily, Haaretz, this week, Georgia’s ambassador to Israel, Vakhtang Jaoshvili, said that Tbilisi was aware of “Russian pressure” on Israel not to sell weapons to Georgia and of link Russia tried to make between its military cooperation with Iran and Israeli-Georgian military cooperation.

“We really understand Israel's constraints," Jaoshvili said.

In the interview with Itar-Tass, Karasin also said that the Georgian authorities were still “obsessed with idea of abstract reintegration” of “now already sovereign Abkhazia and South Ossetia”. In such condition, he continued, restoration of confidence between Georgians and Abkhazians and South Ossetians was hardly possible.

“Restoration of lost confidence,” he said, “requires courage to take uneasy decisions.”

“Tbilisi’s all the efforts are actually focused on promotion of so called ‘strategy on occupied territories’ and on action plan to implement [this strategy]. The name [the strategy] speaks for itself. It is obvious that Abkhazians and South Ossetians will never agree on such insulting terms and goals of this document,” Karasin said.