Russia agrees to limited Georgia troop pull-out

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/08/europe/09georgia.php


By Ellen Barry and Graham Bowley
Published: September 8, 2008

MOSCOW: President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia said Monday that his country's forces would withdraw from Georgia to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two ethnic enclaves that Russian troops seized and Russia quickly recognized as independent last month.

Speaking after meeting with a delegation led by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Medvedev said Russia would allow 200 European monitors to deploy in the security zones outside the two enclaves and in other disputed areas in Georgia by Oct. 1, so that Russian troops would be able to pull back. Georgia and Russia have traded accusations over civilian deaths since the conflict over the territories began.

"Russia has received from the countries of the European Union, and France which is chairman of the European Union, a guarantee of the non-use of force by Georgia," Medvedev said after the talks. He said Russia had also agreed to remove checkpoints around the port of Poti in Georgia, Reuters reported.

That was something of a turnaround, since Russian officials had earlier indicated they would resist the deployment of European monitors.

But the Russian president would not yield on the sovereignty of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which the European Union, the United States and others insist remain part of Georgia.

Sarkozy and Medvedev met at the Russian presidential retreat at Barvikha outside Moscow. The other members of Sarkozy's delegation were Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign-policy chief, and José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president.

Sarkozy, who had hoped to get Russia to finally comply with the six-point cease-fire agreement he and Medvedev negotiated last month, defended his limited victory, and his failure to overcome the issue of Georgia's territorial integrity, saying Europe did not want another cold war. The European Union delegation was due to travel on to Georgia.

Speaking before the meeting, Medvedev said: "A tense month has passed during which all necessary efforts have been undertaken to conform strictly with the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan. But there have been other important events. Russia recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. There are new approaches in the way we have to move forward."

European foreign ministers met informally over the weekend in Avignon, France. But even at that meeting, there was significant doubt that the Monday mission, deputized at an emergency European Union summit meeting on the Georgia crisis a week ago, would produce significant, concrete results.

"There's a great deal to do, with a lot of details, and not much time on Monday," said a European Union official who was due to travel with Sarkozy. Like several other officials interviewed for this article, he spoke on condition of anonymity according to diplomatic rules.

A senior French official said the mission could not resolve the entire crisis but had two main aims. The first was the withdrawal of Russian troops from what diplomats termed "Georgia proper," the parts of Georgia beyond the boundaries of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The second was to get the Russians to agree to a monitoring group, as the cease-fire agreement called for, and establish its area of responsibility.

The roughly 200 monitors, ideally with a United Nations mandate, would replace Russian peacekeepers in the security zone outside the two enclaves and in other disputed areas, so that Russian troops would pull back, as Russia had agreed, to positions they held before the crisis started on Aug. 7.

The Europeans want Russia to accept the appointment of a high representative to run the "international mechanism" overseeing the monitors, but Russia is insisting on involving the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, in which it has a strong voice.

Then, under the cease-fire plan, talks are to start on the status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, though details remain vague and must be negotiated.

The meeting's participants in Avignon over the weekend had no ready answer to the Russians' violation of Georgian territorial integrity, which the European Union has condemned as unacceptable, and no expectation that Russia would readily relent.

The phrase "Georgia proper" was frequently heard this weekend to describe Georgia without the enclaves. "I agree it's a dangerous phrase," the Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said. "But the facts on the ground have been imposed."

Sikorski was said to be the strongest voice inside the closed meetings for a hard line with Russia and a strong statement of support for Ukraine, which meets with the European Union on Tuesday.

On the sidelines, Sikorski said he favored giving Ukraine associate status in the European Union while "maintaining a European perspective" backing it for future membership in the bloc "even though it will take many years to fulfill the necessary criteria."

While Poland, Britain, Sweden and the Baltic countries pressed for a hard line toward Russia, officials said that specific sanctions were not discussed. Kouchner also refused to discuss how the 27-nation group would respond if Russia continued to delay compliance.

"It depends on the Russian answer," he said. There is no point, he said, in imposing "unuseful sanctions," steps Russia could ignore.

"Sanctions are not our word," he said. "We must find an understanding to solve this conflict."

Ellen Barry reported from Moscow and Graham Bowley from New York. Steven Erlanger contributed reporting from Avignon, France, and Alan Cowell from London.