WASHINGTON (AFP) — Five more US military flights with relief supplies were dispatched to war-torn Georgia Monday as Washington considered the possibility of sea humanitarian missions, officials said.
So far, 14 planes have been involved in the US humanitarian effort, which cost more than 4.2 million dollars, including medical supplies, antibiotics, tents, blankets, food and water, they said.
"Five flights arrived in (the Georgian capital) Tbilisi over the weekend carrying State Department-provided sleeping bags, blankets, burn bandages and first aid kits for distribution to internally displaced persons," State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters.
"Five additional flights are scheduled for today, August 18, carrying an estimated 25,000 Defense Department-provided MRE's (meals-ready-to-eat) as well as 3,000 hygiene kits provided by USAID and the office of foreign disaster assistance," he said.
Experts from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) went to Georgia on Friday to assess the needs of the war-torn country, joining a US military assessment team that arrived the day before, officials have said.
As Russia announced the start of a withdrawal of troops from Georgia on Monday, Washington said it was considering expanding the humanitarian effort using naval vessels.
"The State Department is looking at other options for sustaining the humanitarian relief operations and is looking at some naval vessels," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.
"The State Department is working at the necessary agreements to achieve some passage in the straits of Turkey and things like that," he said.
General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday that Washington's plans called for sending two US Navy hospital ships to Georgia, among other assistance.
Unnamed US officials were quoted saying last week that the two hospital ships likely to go -- the Comfort and the Mercy -- would take weeks to arrive and complained that Turkey was "sluggish and unresponsive" in granting them permission to sail through the straits to the Black Sea.
"Surface vessels give us the capability to provide larger amounts of relief supplies and they also give you the platform to operate off aerial assets, vertical lifts, those types of things," Whitman said.
He did not specify whether warships would be involved in any such missions.
The Turkish foreign ministry said Friday Ankara was cooperating with countries sending assistance to Georgia and "no request with the purpose of humanitarian aid or repatriation has been denied so far."
Without a reference to the US ships, it said the transportation of assistance by sea was regulated under the terms of the 1936 Montreux Convention, which governs international traffic through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits.
Turkey's NTV news channel reported that the two ships' tonnage exceeded the limits set by the convention.
State Department's Wood said since the beginning of the humanitarian effort last week, the US government had provided more than 4.2 million dollars in emergency relief supplies, including medical supplies, antibiotics, tents, blankets, food and water.
He said daily multiple flights with humanitarian commodities were scheduled to continue until at least August 23.
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