First EU monitors enter Georgian buffer zones

http://www.reuters.com/Wed Oct 1, 2008 10:49am EDT

By Margarita Antidze

NABAKHTEVI, Georgia (Reuters) - EU monitors entered a Russian-controlled buffer zone around Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia for the first time on Wednesday in what they said was a smooth start to their peacekeeping operation.

The 200-plus EU monitors began deploying under a French-brokered ceasefire deal that should see Moscow pull troops back within 10 days from two buffer zones inside Georgia, occupied during a war between the two countries in August.

The Russian military and EU officials had said earlier there was still no agreement on full access to the zones. But on Wednesday at least two EU patrols entered the South Ossetia buffer zone at separate locations, passing Russian checkpoints.

A Reuters reporter traveling with one of the patrols, led by French civilian monitors, entered the zone in the village of Nabakhtevi, west of the town of Gori. "We're in the buffer zone," one of the monitors confirmed.

A smooth deployment is critical to the success of the peace deal and will test Russia's willingness to stick to its terms. The crisis over Georgia, an aspiring NATO member and key transit state for exports of Caspian Sea oil and gas, has gravely damaged Moscow's relations with Europe and the United States.

After lengthy discussions with Russian commanders, a second patrol entered at Karaleti, in an area where human rights groups say paramilitaries have been looting and attacking ethnic Georgian villages since the war, forcing thousands to flee.

"Patrols made first contact with authorities and (the local) population," an EU spokesman said. "They also passed different Russian checkpoints and entered the so-called adjacent areas."

A spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said: "They have been able to go wherever they planned to go."

The EU mission said it hoped to coordinate a "step-by-step" withdrawal of Russian forces and simultaneous return of Georgian police to the buffer zones to avoid a security vacuum that could be exploited by roaming militias.

Georgia welcomed the EU's entry to the buffer zones.

"It is once more confirmation that when the international community is unified and resolute, the Russians are compelled to comply," said National Security Council Secretary Kakha Lomaia.

NO ACCESS TO REBEL REGIONS

Russia has said the EU monitors will not be allowed inside South Ossetia or a second breakaway Georgian region, Abkhazia, both of which it has recognized since the conflict as independent states. Moscow says it can guarantee security in the rebel regions, where it plans to post more than 7,000 troops.

As the monitors set off, access remained an issue, with EU mission head Hansjoerg Haber telling reporters that assurances offered by Russia at the political level were "understood differently" by the military on the ground.

He said Russian forces had given "all sorts of reasons" for denying access, including security concerns. In western Georgia, a Reuters TV reporter saw an EU patrol approach a Russian post near the de facto border with Abkhazia but turn back.

Months of skirmishes between separatists and Georgian troops erupted into war in August when Georgia's army tried to retake Moscow-backed South Ossetia, which threw off Tbilisi's rule in 1991-92. Russia responded with a powerful counter-strike that drove the Georgian army out of South Ossetia. Its forces then pushed further into Georgia, saying they needed to prevent further Georgian attacks.

The West has condemned Russia for a "disproportionate response" to Georgia's actions and has repeatedly demanded that Moscow pull its troops out of the buffer zones inside Georgia.

In Tbilisi, the Georgian police displayed what they said was a Russian unmanned reconnaissance drone that fell out of the sky on Tuesday just outside South Ossetia. "This is our territory, we control it," said spokesman Shota Utiashvili.

A spokesman for Russian forces in South Ossetia, Lt-Col Vitaly Manushko, said he could not confirm the Georgian claim, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.

(Additional reporting by Matt Robinson in Bazaleti, Georgia; Writing by Conor Sweeney and Matt Robinson; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)