Suicide bomber explodes himself at Abkhazia TV center

Russian news agencies say a man has blown himself up at a television station in the capital of Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia.

Interfax on Monday quoted local Interior Ministry officials saying the man, who has not been identified, set off the bomb at the entrance to the Abkhazian State Television in Sukhumi.

Authorities stopped short of calling the incident a terrorist attack with the self-proclaimed president Raul Khadzhimba telling Interfax the investigation is ongoing.

Despite tension with Georgia Abkhazia has no history of terrorist attacks on its turf.

Abkhazia has claimed independence from Georgia since an armed conflict in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Russia recognised the region as independent from Georgia following a brief conflict in 2008 over another breakaway region of South Ossetia and has thousands of troops stationed there.

Georgia insists that the two regions are under de facto Russian occupation.