YEREVAN - Russia recently completed the partial redeployment of military hardware from southern Georgia into its military base in Armenia. The redeployment began last month as part of the ongoing reduction of Russia's military presence in Georgia agreed between the two countries last year.

Military sources in Yerevan told RFE/RL that a column of 13 armored vehicles arrived at the Russian base in the northern Armenian city of Gumri by midday. A total of 76 pieces of Russian military hardware have been moved into Gumri from Georgia's Armenian-populated town of Akhalkalaki in just over three weeks.

The Akhalkalaki base is one of the four Russian military facilities on Georgian territory. Two of them, located near the capital Tbilisi and in the breakaway republic of Abkhazia, began to be dismantled last August in line with the Russian-Georgian agreement reached in November 1999. The future of the two other bases is still being negotiated between the two states, with Georgia pushing for a complete pullout of Russian troops. The next round of bilateral talks is due next month.

The population of the Akhalkalaki region is largely opposed to the troop withdrawal, citing economic and security concerns. Ethnic Armenians populating the area bordering on Turkey and Armenia have had uneasy relations with the authorities in Tbilisi since the break-up of the Soviet Union. Some of their leaders fear that the transfer of the armored vehicles could be a prelude to the eventual closure of the local base. Russian military commanders in Akhalkalaki refused to comment over the weekend.

Armenian and Russian officials insist that the reinforcement of the Gumri base is not in breach of the arms quotas allocated to Moscow by the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty revised during the OSCE summit in Istanbul one year ago. A spokesman for the US State Department said late last month that the Russian redeployment is "being done in compliance with the agreements at Istanbul."

Azerbaijan has already expressed concern that the Russian military equipment from Akhalkalaki may be handed over to the Armenian armed forces. Yerevan and Moscow have ruled out such a possibility.