The economic minister of Georgia's South Ossetia region was found dead in a river Tuesday amid mounting tensions between the central government and the separatist region.

Georgian police found the body of Ruslan Pliyev in the Liakhva River near the village of Tamarasheni Tuesday a few hours after the minister was reported missing, the Georgian Interior Ministry's press service said.

Pliyev went missing on Monday night and his car was later foundin the Liakhva River early Tuesday, said South Ossetian Interior Minister Robert Guliyev, according to the Itar-Tass news agency.

Guliyev said it appeared that Pliyev failed to control his car on a sharp bend and was thrown out as it plunged down a cliff intothe river.

Policemen found no evidence of violence to the body, the Interfax news agency cited the press service as reporting.

The death of Pliyev occurred amid simmering tensions that erupted in late May between the Georgian government and South Ossetia.

South Ossetia won de facto independence in separatist wars in the early 1990s shortly after the breakup of the former Soviet Union that bestowed sovereignty to Georgia.

The renegade South Ossetian leadership has steadfastly refused to recognize Georgian authority over the region in the face of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili's pledge to reunite the country by taking the region -- along with another breakaway republic, Abkhazia -- back under control.

Relations between Georgia and Russia have soured in recent years over the dispute.

Georgian Defense Minister Giorgi Baramidze is on a three-day working visit to Moscow in an effort to soothe the increasingly strained ties betweenn the two countries.

Source: Xinhua