www.chicagotribune.com
September 24, 2008
Georgia's president announced a major government overhaul Tuesday, calling it a "Second Rose Revolution" to guard against Russian encroachment after last month's war between the two countries.
In a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said expanded democratic initiatives will include stronger checks and balances in government, more independence for Parliament and the judiciary, and increased funding for opposition parties.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Moscow denies Russian drone shot down in Georgia
www.rbcnews.com
RBC, 23.09.2008, Moscow 15:36:01.Russia's Defense Ministry denies that its unmanned reconnaissance aircraft has reportedly been shot down over Georgia, Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky, head of the ministry's press office told RBC today. This is a new provocation by Georgia aiming to destabilize the situation in the region, he asserted, adding that no Russian aircraft was even flying in the security zone in the given period.
Shota Utiashvili, Georgia's spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told journalists in Tbilisi earlier that a Russian unmanned plane was shot down near the village of Tsitelubani. Utiashvili maintained that the aircraft had been on a reconnaissance flight in the area of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.
RBC, 23.09.2008, Moscow 15:36:01.Russia's Defense Ministry denies that its unmanned reconnaissance aircraft has reportedly been shot down over Georgia, Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky, head of the ministry's press office told RBC today. This is a new provocation by Georgia aiming to destabilize the situation in the region, he asserted, adding that no Russian aircraft was even flying in the security zone in the given period.
Shota Utiashvili, Georgia's spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told journalists in Tbilisi earlier that a Russian unmanned plane was shot down near the village of Tsitelubani. Utiashvili maintained that the aircraft had been on a reconnaissance flight in the area of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.
Georgia claims downing of Russian drone
www.afp.com
TBILISI (AFP) — Georgia on Tuesday claimed to have shot down a Russian drone near one of its rebel regions and a key oil pipeline, as US President George W. Bush underlined support for Georgia at the United Nations.
Moscow denied the Georgian claim, describing it as a "provocation."
Georgian interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said police had shot down the reconnaissance drone on Monday near a buffer zone around South Ossetia patrolled by Russian forces since last month's conflict over the rebel region.
"Yesterday morning a Georgian police unit patrolling near the Baku-Supsa pipeline saw a small Russian unmanned plane, which was immediately downed.
"The drone, which was flying at an altitude of 50 metres (160 feet), was shot down by our policemen with automatic weapons. It was equipped with photographic camera and a global positioning system (GPS)," Utiashvili told AFP.
He defended the shooting down of the drone, saying a European Union-brokered peace deal did not provide for the use of drones.
"It was beyond the so-called buffer zone. Even in the buffer zone there's nothing that allows Russia to use drones," he said.
He added that the drone was downed a "few dozen metres" from the BP-operated Baku-Supsa pipeline, a key route for oil deliveries from the Caspian Sea region to the West that has been closed since the conflict.
In Moscow, Russian army spokesman Vitaly Manushko denied any such incident had occurred.
Defence ministry spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky told Interfax: "This is the latest informational provocation from the Georgian side with the aim of destabilising the situation."
At the UN General Assembly in New York, US President George W. Bush reiterated his support for Georgia, a US ally that contributed troops to Iraq until abruptly bringing them home during last month's conflict.
"We must stand united in our support of the people of Georgia. The United Nations charter sets forth the equal rights of nations large and small. Russia's invasion of Georgia was a violation of those words," Bush said.
Later Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was expected to appeal at the General Assembly for international support in the face of Russia's military offensive and recognition of Georgia's two rebel regions as independent.
Moscow says it intervened to defend Russian citizens living in South Ossetia.
In a sign of the continuing stand-off, the Moscow-backed head of Georgia's Abkhazia region said Russian troops would remain posted in the Kodori Gorge, a strategic position controlled by Tbilisi until last month's conflict.
"A unit of Russian troops will be located in the upper part of the Kodori Gorge," Interfax news agency quoted Sergei Bagapsh as saying.
Meanwhile the first part of a 300-strong EU observer mission, a group of Italian monitors, arrived in Tbilisi together with armoured cars.
The mission is due for deployment on the ground by October 1 under the EU-brokered peace deal, which also calls for Russian forces to pull back from the buffer zones to positions they held before the conflict by October 10.
While Georgia's military is obliged by the deal to remain in its bases, Georgian police continue to operate around South Ossetia.
TBILISI (AFP) — Georgia on Tuesday claimed to have shot down a Russian drone near one of its rebel regions and a key oil pipeline, as US President George W. Bush underlined support for Georgia at the United Nations.
Moscow denied the Georgian claim, describing it as a "provocation."
Georgian interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said police had shot down the reconnaissance drone on Monday near a buffer zone around South Ossetia patrolled by Russian forces since last month's conflict over the rebel region.
"Yesterday morning a Georgian police unit patrolling near the Baku-Supsa pipeline saw a small Russian unmanned plane, which was immediately downed.
"The drone, which was flying at an altitude of 50 metres (160 feet), was shot down by our policemen with automatic weapons. It was equipped with photographic camera and a global positioning system (GPS)," Utiashvili told AFP.
He defended the shooting down of the drone, saying a European Union-brokered peace deal did not provide for the use of drones.
"It was beyond the so-called buffer zone. Even in the buffer zone there's nothing that allows Russia to use drones," he said.
He added that the drone was downed a "few dozen metres" from the BP-operated Baku-Supsa pipeline, a key route for oil deliveries from the Caspian Sea region to the West that has been closed since the conflict.
In Moscow, Russian army spokesman Vitaly Manushko denied any such incident had occurred.
Defence ministry spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky told Interfax: "This is the latest informational provocation from the Georgian side with the aim of destabilising the situation."
At the UN General Assembly in New York, US President George W. Bush reiterated his support for Georgia, a US ally that contributed troops to Iraq until abruptly bringing them home during last month's conflict.
"We must stand united in our support of the people of Georgia. The United Nations charter sets forth the equal rights of nations large and small. Russia's invasion of Georgia was a violation of those words," Bush said.
Later Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was expected to appeal at the General Assembly for international support in the face of Russia's military offensive and recognition of Georgia's two rebel regions as independent.
Moscow says it intervened to defend Russian citizens living in South Ossetia.
In a sign of the continuing stand-off, the Moscow-backed head of Georgia's Abkhazia region said Russian troops would remain posted in the Kodori Gorge, a strategic position controlled by Tbilisi until last month's conflict.
"A unit of Russian troops will be located in the upper part of the Kodori Gorge," Interfax news agency quoted Sergei Bagapsh as saying.
Meanwhile the first part of a 300-strong EU observer mission, a group of Italian monitors, arrived in Tbilisi together with armoured cars.
The mission is due for deployment on the ground by October 1 under the EU-brokered peace deal, which also calls for Russian forces to pull back from the buffer zones to positions they held before the conflict by October 10.
While Georgia's military is obliged by the deal to remain in its bases, Georgian police continue to operate around South Ossetia.
France says 300 EU observers and support personnel being sent to Georgia
Copyright © 2008 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
PARIS — France says an EU mission to Georgia will involve up to 300 observers as well as support workers.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Frederic Desagneaux said Wednesday the move complies with a decision at a EU meeting Sept. 15. The European bloc has agreed to send at least 200 observers to Georgia as Russian forces withdraw from buffer zones along the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
The EU mission is to deploy by Oct. 1.
Russian forces drove into Georgia last month after repelling an attempt by Georgia to retake South Ossetia by force.
Moscow has since recognized the independence of the two areas and is keeping nearly 8,000 troops inside them.
PARIS — France says an EU mission to Georgia will involve up to 300 observers as well as support workers.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Frederic Desagneaux said Wednesday the move complies with a decision at a EU meeting Sept. 15. The European bloc has agreed to send at least 200 observers to Georgia as Russian forces withdraw from buffer zones along the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
The EU mission is to deploy by Oct. 1.
Russian forces drove into Georgia last month after repelling an attempt by Georgia to retake South Ossetia by force.
Moscow has since recognized the independence of the two areas and is keeping nearly 8,000 troops inside them.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Russia, France put aside Georgia war differences
www.reuters.com
By Oleg Shchedrov
SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - Russia and France put aside disagreements over the August war in Georgia in a move to promote bi-lateral relations, especially in key energy projects.
"We will conduct with Russia a direct and tight dialogue of true partners," French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said, opening a regular meeting of an inter-government commission in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
The final document of the meeting said the two countries will focus on developing relations in high tech, energy and space sectors, including cooperation in developing the Shtokman gas field and a joint project to launch Soyuz space crafts from a French launching pad.
"Differences happen, indeed, but they should be resolved through a dialogue," he told the gathering of government officials and businessmen co-chaired by powerful Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Fillon flew to Sochi at a time when the European Union is reviewing ties with Russia. The EU condemned Moscow's intervention in Georgia, launched last month to crush Tbilisi's attempt to retake two pro-Moscow regions.
EU members are split over how to handle relations with its biggest energy supplier and a major trading partner. They stopped short of imposing sanctions against Russia, but suspended talks on a new treaty regulating their relations.
"We wanted this meeting to take place at the original time because it's very important to strengthen the partnership between the European Union and Russia, and France and Russia," Fillon told Putin at their first meeting late on Friday.
EU DIFFERENCES
Fillon's remarks highlighted the differences within the EU -- some members like France, Germany and Italy, urge caution in handling Russia, while others, mainly former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe, want tougher action.
Analysts say the new rift with the West over Georgia have scared investors, adding to Moscow's financial woes in the face of recent global stock market turmoil.
Putin said relations with France were not affected by the Georgian crisis.
"I believe the events in the Caucasus did not affect our cooperation in any way," he said.
Not a single project has been put off or suspended between France and Russia in the wake of the Georgia conflict.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating presidency in the European Union, mediated the deal which ended the war in Georgia.
Under it, Russia agreed to withdraw troops from undisputed Georgian territories in October after 200 EU monitors -- more than 40 of them from France -- arrive in the Caucasus country.
Russia, which has recognized the independence of Georgia's breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, said it will set up military bases there and told the West to negotiate the presence of international monitors with their leaders.
Fillon told Putin at their meeting on Friday that Sarkozy was satisfied the provisions of the agreement were being carried out. He said this was a clue to restarting the talks on a new EU-Russia deal.
"The EU position is clear: we hope the talks will resume as soon as provisions of the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan are carried out," he said. "There are no reasons not to resume talks early next month."
De-blocking talks with EU is important in Russia's attempts to resist calls by the United States, Georgia's main backer, to form a united front with the EU to put joint pressure on Moscow.
By Oleg Shchedrov
SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - Russia and France put aside disagreements over the August war in Georgia in a move to promote bi-lateral relations, especially in key energy projects.
"We will conduct with Russia a direct and tight dialogue of true partners," French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said, opening a regular meeting of an inter-government commission in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
The final document of the meeting said the two countries will focus on developing relations in high tech, energy and space sectors, including cooperation in developing the Shtokman gas field and a joint project to launch Soyuz space crafts from a French launching pad.
"Differences happen, indeed, but they should be resolved through a dialogue," he told the gathering of government officials and businessmen co-chaired by powerful Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Fillon flew to Sochi at a time when the European Union is reviewing ties with Russia. The EU condemned Moscow's intervention in Georgia, launched last month to crush Tbilisi's attempt to retake two pro-Moscow regions.
EU members are split over how to handle relations with its biggest energy supplier and a major trading partner. They stopped short of imposing sanctions against Russia, but suspended talks on a new treaty regulating their relations.
"We wanted this meeting to take place at the original time because it's very important to strengthen the partnership between the European Union and Russia, and France and Russia," Fillon told Putin at their first meeting late on Friday.
EU DIFFERENCES
Fillon's remarks highlighted the differences within the EU -- some members like France, Germany and Italy, urge caution in handling Russia, while others, mainly former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe, want tougher action.
Analysts say the new rift with the West over Georgia have scared investors, adding to Moscow's financial woes in the face of recent global stock market turmoil.
Putin said relations with France were not affected by the Georgian crisis.
"I believe the events in the Caucasus did not affect our cooperation in any way," he said.
Not a single project has been put off or suspended between France and Russia in the wake of the Georgia conflict.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating presidency in the European Union, mediated the deal which ended the war in Georgia.
Under it, Russia agreed to withdraw troops from undisputed Georgian territories in October after 200 EU monitors -- more than 40 of them from France -- arrive in the Caucasus country.
Russia, which has recognized the independence of Georgia's breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, said it will set up military bases there and told the West to negotiate the presence of international monitors with their leaders.
Fillon told Putin at their meeting on Friday that Sarkozy was satisfied the provisions of the agreement were being carried out. He said this was a clue to restarting the talks on a new EU-Russia deal.
"The EU position is clear: we hope the talks will resume as soon as provisions of the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan are carried out," he said. "There are no reasons not to resume talks early next month."
De-blocking talks with EU is important in Russia's attempts to resist calls by the United States, Georgia's main backer, to form a united front with the EU to put joint pressure on Moscow.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Opinion - Women and Children Last
guardian.co.uk
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2008.
SATURDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2008
by: Angelika Arutyunova, The Guardian UK
The true asymmetry of the Georgian conflict is that suffering was shared unequally, with women and children worst off.
For the past month, women in Georgia who were displaced from Abkhazia during the 1993 conflict have witnessed history moving backwards; everything they lived through 15 years ago is repeating itself. These women are now hosting a new flood of displaced civilians from Abkhazia and South Ossetia after Russia's aggression in those regions, as well as within the Georgian territories that Russian forces have occupied since the invasion. In Tbilisi alone, there are more than 500 camps for internally displaced people, many of them women and children living with shortages of food and medical supplies.
Georgians today hardly feel supportive of their president, Mikheil Saakashvili, who, in a foolish attempt to regain control over South Ossetia, turn its full military might Russia to drop its peacekeeping mission in the region and to pushing Georgian troops out of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and then to occupying much of Georgia. The Russians bombed numerous strategic and civilian targets in Georgia, destroying infrastructure resulting in shortages of food, fuel, and medicine.
People are in despair; they are angry at Russia for its aggression and at their own government for provoking this uneven conflict. People of different nationalities and ethnicities have been living in this region side by side for centuries, sharing customs, traditions, bread and wine, and mutual respect for each another's cultures and languages. But, going back to the Russian, British, and Ottoman Empires that once battled here, they have been continually exploited by politicians and generals.
Women and children suffer the most in times of conflict. Add to this centuries-old patriarchal traditions, 15-year-old post-war traumas, a 20-year economic crisis, and current Russian aggression, and you may begin to grasp what women in South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Georgia are enduring these days.
Besides the general devastation that modern warfare brings, impoverished and angry Russian soldiers were wreaking havoc on civilians by stealing belongings left behind and raping women. In addition, lawlessness was enticing bandits to cross the border and vandalise and rob properties left by fleeing refugees. News reports and "analysis" by state-controlled channels in both Russia and Georgia that promote negative images of "the enemy" serve only to widen the gap between ethnic groups.
Over the past month, concerned citizens in both Russia and Georgia have started to make attempts to build alliances and reach out to each other outside of the government-controlled media and structures. There have been action calls and statements circulated on the web calling on the people of the region to unite and not allow governments to build bigger walls between them.
Despite government propaganda, the region's people must remember that Russians are not superior to Georgians, Georgians to Ossetians or Abkhazians, and so on. We need to stop these territorial battles based on national pride and desire to control and rule. Saakashvili must be pressured to abandon his effort to wield full control over Abkhazia and South Ossetia. At the same time, the Russian government must be pressured to pull out of the Caucasus and let people there decide their future for themselves.
Now is the time for Georgian, Russian, Abkazian, and Ossetian civilians who are bearing the brunt of the conflict to come together to stop imperial chess games that kill thousands of people and leave thousands more displaced and emotionally wounded. It is time to help civil society in this area build a world where peace, not warfare, is the rule.
Women's rights activists in the region should not fall into a brainwashing trap of nationalism and territorial disputes, becoming another tool in the hands of politicians. They should demonstrate to their governments that they will not succumb to divisive ideology.
-------
Angelika Arutyunova is programme officer for Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) at the Global Fund for Women.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2008.
SATURDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2008
by: Angelika Arutyunova, The Guardian UK
The true asymmetry of the Georgian conflict is that suffering was shared unequally, with women and children worst off.
For the past month, women in Georgia who were displaced from Abkhazia during the 1993 conflict have witnessed history moving backwards; everything they lived through 15 years ago is repeating itself. These women are now hosting a new flood of displaced civilians from Abkhazia and South Ossetia after Russia's aggression in those regions, as well as within the Georgian territories that Russian forces have occupied since the invasion. In Tbilisi alone, there are more than 500 camps for internally displaced people, many of them women and children living with shortages of food and medical supplies.
Georgians today hardly feel supportive of their president, Mikheil Saakashvili, who, in a foolish attempt to regain control over South Ossetia, turn its full military might Russia to drop its peacekeeping mission in the region and to pushing Georgian troops out of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and then to occupying much of Georgia. The Russians bombed numerous strategic and civilian targets in Georgia, destroying infrastructure resulting in shortages of food, fuel, and medicine.
People are in despair; they are angry at Russia for its aggression and at their own government for provoking this uneven conflict. People of different nationalities and ethnicities have been living in this region side by side for centuries, sharing customs, traditions, bread and wine, and mutual respect for each another's cultures and languages. But, going back to the Russian, British, and Ottoman Empires that once battled here, they have been continually exploited by politicians and generals.
Women and children suffer the most in times of conflict. Add to this centuries-old patriarchal traditions, 15-year-old post-war traumas, a 20-year economic crisis, and current Russian aggression, and you may begin to grasp what women in South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Georgia are enduring these days.
Besides the general devastation that modern warfare brings, impoverished and angry Russian soldiers were wreaking havoc on civilians by stealing belongings left behind and raping women. In addition, lawlessness was enticing bandits to cross the border and vandalise and rob properties left by fleeing refugees. News reports and "analysis" by state-controlled channels in both Russia and Georgia that promote negative images of "the enemy" serve only to widen the gap between ethnic groups.
Over the past month, concerned citizens in both Russia and Georgia have started to make attempts to build alliances and reach out to each other outside of the government-controlled media and structures. There have been action calls and statements circulated on the web calling on the people of the region to unite and not allow governments to build bigger walls between them.
Despite government propaganda, the region's people must remember that Russians are not superior to Georgians, Georgians to Ossetians or Abkhazians, and so on. We need to stop these territorial battles based on national pride and desire to control and rule. Saakashvili must be pressured to abandon his effort to wield full control over Abkhazia and South Ossetia. At the same time, the Russian government must be pressured to pull out of the Caucasus and let people there decide their future for themselves.
Now is the time for Georgian, Russian, Abkazian, and Ossetian civilians who are bearing the brunt of the conflict to come together to stop imperial chess games that kill thousands of people and leave thousands more displaced and emotionally wounded. It is time to help civil society in this area build a world where peace, not warfare, is the rule.
Women's rights activists in the region should not fall into a brainwashing trap of nationalism and territorial disputes, becoming another tool in the hands of politicians. They should demonstrate to their governments that they will not succumb to divisive ideology.
-------
Angelika Arutyunova is programme officer for Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) at the Global Fund for Women.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Opinion - Russia and NATO's identity question
www.csmonitor.com
Thursday September 18, 4:00 AM ET
Ever since the Soviet Union's 1991 collapse, when NATO lost its enemy and its prime reason for being, the West's military alliance has been in existential limbo. Is its purpose to fight terrorism beyond Europe? Is its identity tied to adding new European countries? Now, with Russia's August invasion of Georgia, NATO's angst is escalating.
Until now, much of the internal wrangling in the alliance had been about "out-of-area" deployments. NATO belatedly intervened to stop atrocities as neighboring Yugoslavia disintegrated in the 1990s. It meanwhile ventured into Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda – but halfheartedly and ill-equipped.
Whether NATO is meant for a more global mission, and if so, whether it can gear up for it are basic questions expected to be the focus of the alliance's 60th anniversary summit next year.
But newer NATO members, such as the Baltic countries, are urging a renewed focus on the alliance's traditional mission: territorial defense.
Moscow's reversion to "sphere of influence" talk and action has awakened these countries' memories of suffocation in that sphere. They feel vulnerable sitting out there on Russia's western edge. They never were militarily fortified when they joined NATO; there was no imminent enemy.
At the same time, Russia's muscularity has deepened the divisions in NATO about taking on new members, specifically, putting Georgia and Ukraine on the path to membership – a subject that the members will take up for the second time in December.
Is the alliance, already overstretched and underappreciated, really prepared to risk war with nuclear-armed Russia to eventually defend these outposts – as its mu-tual defense clause guarantees? That question hardly applied to NATO aspirants during Russia's weak years, but it's a sobering one now.
NATO's ambivalence about responding to the new strong Russia can be seen in its mixed messages.
In a show of solidarity, its ambassadors met this week in Georgia, where the NATO secretary-general proclaimed that "the road to NATO is still wide open." The US ambassador to NATO, Kurt Volker, said Russia should not be allowed to "veto" Georgia's future. Nor should its conflicts serve as an excuse to keep Georgia out of the alliance.
Yet even Mr. Volker, perhaps NATO's strongest backer of Georgia, was cautious about the timing, as was NATO's secretary-general. Indeed, NATO doesn't allow for taking on members involved in territorial conflicts.
And debate continues on whether Russia's needed cooperation on important global issues, such as Iran and energy, should be the more powerful driver in NATO's relations with Moscow. Perhaps the best way to keep it in check for now is through an economic and diplomatic squeeze. Russia's financial markets are already hurting.
NATO can start addressing its identity question by reaching a consensus on the nature of the Russia threat. Is Georgia a one-off event to be contained? Or does NATO expect other Russian provocations in Europe, perhaps even against its own members?
Not until NATO understands the new Russia can it figure out what to do about it.
Thursday September 18, 4:00 AM ET
Ever since the Soviet Union's 1991 collapse, when NATO lost its enemy and its prime reason for being, the West's military alliance has been in existential limbo. Is its purpose to fight terrorism beyond Europe? Is its identity tied to adding new European countries? Now, with Russia's August invasion of Georgia, NATO's angst is escalating.
Until now, much of the internal wrangling in the alliance had been about "out-of-area" deployments. NATO belatedly intervened to stop atrocities as neighboring Yugoslavia disintegrated in the 1990s. It meanwhile ventured into Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda – but halfheartedly and ill-equipped.
Whether NATO is meant for a more global mission, and if so, whether it can gear up for it are basic questions expected to be the focus of the alliance's 60th anniversary summit next year.
But newer NATO members, such as the Baltic countries, are urging a renewed focus on the alliance's traditional mission: territorial defense.
Moscow's reversion to "sphere of influence" talk and action has awakened these countries' memories of suffocation in that sphere. They feel vulnerable sitting out there on Russia's western edge. They never were militarily fortified when they joined NATO; there was no imminent enemy.
At the same time, Russia's muscularity has deepened the divisions in NATO about taking on new members, specifically, putting Georgia and Ukraine on the path to membership – a subject that the members will take up for the second time in December.
Is the alliance, already overstretched and underappreciated, really prepared to risk war with nuclear-armed Russia to eventually defend these outposts – as its mu-tual defense clause guarantees? That question hardly applied to NATO aspirants during Russia's weak years, but it's a sobering one now.
NATO's ambivalence about responding to the new strong Russia can be seen in its mixed messages.
In a show of solidarity, its ambassadors met this week in Georgia, where the NATO secretary-general proclaimed that "the road to NATO is still wide open." The US ambassador to NATO, Kurt Volker, said Russia should not be allowed to "veto" Georgia's future. Nor should its conflicts serve as an excuse to keep Georgia out of the alliance.
Yet even Mr. Volker, perhaps NATO's strongest backer of Georgia, was cautious about the timing, as was NATO's secretary-general. Indeed, NATO doesn't allow for taking on members involved in territorial conflicts.
And debate continues on whether Russia's needed cooperation on important global issues, such as Iran and energy, should be the more powerful driver in NATO's relations with Moscow. Perhaps the best way to keep it in check for now is through an economic and diplomatic squeeze. Russia's financial markets are already hurting.
NATO can start addressing its identity question by reaching a consensus on the nature of the Russia threat. Is Georgia a one-off event to be contained? Or does NATO expect other Russian provocations in Europe, perhaps even against its own members?
Not until NATO understands the new Russia can it figure out what to do about it.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
To end a war
Sep 11th 2008 | TBILISI
From The Economist print edition
www.econmist.com
Russian troops pull back under another ceasefire deal, but new ambiguities arise over deploying European monitors
THE French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, smiled happily. His Georgian counterpart, Mikheil Saakashvili, looked an unhealthy shade of grey. Yet his troops were routed in the August war with Russia, so he was in no position to bargain for better terms than Mr Sarkozy had brought from Moscow. At a joint press conference in the early hours of September 9th he thanked Mr Sarkozy fulsomely. Under the circumstances, with Russian forces soon to pull out of parts of Georgia where they had earlier dug in, the deal was not a bad one.
Soon after the conflict moved from tit-for-tat firing into full-blown war on August 7th, and Russian troops crushed the Georgians in the breakaway enclave of South Ossetia and appeared to menace Tbilisi itself, Mr Sarkozy flew to Moscow and secured a ceasefire. It was full of ambiguities that Russia exploited to allow its forces to create a buffer zone around South Ossetia and to remain in Senaki and the port of Poti. Under the new deal, these troops will all go.
“They should get the hell out,” declared Mr Saakashvili. Mr Sarkozy said everything had to be done “step by step”. In truth the new deal is ambiguous and tension remains high (a Georgian policeman was shot dead on September 10th). The deal says that some 200 EU monitors will replace Russians in the buffer zone, and also talks of a separate EU mission whose observers will, says Mr Sarkozy, be able to go wherever they want, including in South Ossetia and in Abkhazia, the other breakaway enclave. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, angrily disputes this, saying that the observers cannot enter the enclaves. The agreement adds that Russian troops should withdraw to positions they held before the war, and Georgian troops should return to barracks.
This is where what seem like holes might be construed instead as constructive ambiguities. One-third of South Ossetia and the Kodori gorge in Abkhazia were held by Georgian forces before the war. It is inconceivable that the 500 Georgian soldiers who were in South Ossetia, not to mention policemen and refugees, will go back—for now. But so long as Mr Lavrov’s interpretation is rejected, Georgia may in future insist on a right to return. In the meantime, despite the terms of the deal, Russia is sending 7,600 more soldiers to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and plans to keep military bases in both.
It is plain where the biggest problems will arise. The EU’s monitors may be welcomed in the buffer zone around South Ossetia, but they will have trouble getting into the two enclaves. Mr Lavrov has argued that, since Russia has recognised the governments of both, the Europeans should deal with them directly, something they will be reluctant to do.
Georgian minds are now turning to the economy. David Bakradze, speaker of Georgia’s parliament, believes that Russia balked at taking Tbilisi mainly because the morale of Georgians did not collapse in the face of their threat. Their tanks might have run into hundreds of thousands of protesters. Yet it is crucial to sustain the economy’s strong growth, because an economic collapse could, he suggests, be followed by political collapse—in which case Georgia could relapse into Russia’s orbit.
So far Georgia’s economy seems to be holding up, but it will be essential to maintain the flow of foreign direct investment. David Lee, who heads MagtiCom, Georgia’s biggest telecoms company (and the biggest American investment in the country), says that present investors have not been deterred, but that those looking for new opportunities might have been. Changing their minds, he says, “is now the battle that must be faced.” That is why the $1 billion in aid promised by the Americans, together with the $750m agreed in principle by the IMF, are so important, says Vladimer Papava, an economist. No doubt it is vital to repair war damage and replace lost foreign investment, but equally important is the symbolic value of this help, reassuring potential investors that Georgia is not being abandoned to Russia.
To endow this idea with more political weight, some diplomats think that Georgia might be given the equivalent of the European road maps being followed by Balkan countries, though without (for now) a promise of membership at the end. The Balkan comparison does not stop there. “The long-term implication of the Sarkozy deal,” says one diplomat, citing the pro-Western Serbian president, “is that Georgia has begun to adopt the [Boris] Tadic line.” That means pledging not to use force to regain lost lands, and focusing instead on EU integration and rebuilding the economy.
From The Economist print edition
www.econmist.com
Russian troops pull back under another ceasefire deal, but new ambiguities arise over deploying European monitors
THE French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, smiled happily. His Georgian counterpart, Mikheil Saakashvili, looked an unhealthy shade of grey. Yet his troops were routed in the August war with Russia, so he was in no position to bargain for better terms than Mr Sarkozy had brought from Moscow. At a joint press conference in the early hours of September 9th he thanked Mr Sarkozy fulsomely. Under the circumstances, with Russian forces soon to pull out of parts of Georgia where they had earlier dug in, the deal was not a bad one.
Soon after the conflict moved from tit-for-tat firing into full-blown war on August 7th, and Russian troops crushed the Georgians in the breakaway enclave of South Ossetia and appeared to menace Tbilisi itself, Mr Sarkozy flew to Moscow and secured a ceasefire. It was full of ambiguities that Russia exploited to allow its forces to create a buffer zone around South Ossetia and to remain in Senaki and the port of Poti. Under the new deal, these troops will all go.
“They should get the hell out,” declared Mr Saakashvili. Mr Sarkozy said everything had to be done “step by step”. In truth the new deal is ambiguous and tension remains high (a Georgian policeman was shot dead on September 10th). The deal says that some 200 EU monitors will replace Russians in the buffer zone, and also talks of a separate EU mission whose observers will, says Mr Sarkozy, be able to go wherever they want, including in South Ossetia and in Abkhazia, the other breakaway enclave. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, angrily disputes this, saying that the observers cannot enter the enclaves. The agreement adds that Russian troops should withdraw to positions they held before the war, and Georgian troops should return to barracks.
This is where what seem like holes might be construed instead as constructive ambiguities. One-third of South Ossetia and the Kodori gorge in Abkhazia were held by Georgian forces before the war. It is inconceivable that the 500 Georgian soldiers who were in South Ossetia, not to mention policemen and refugees, will go back—for now. But so long as Mr Lavrov’s interpretation is rejected, Georgia may in future insist on a right to return. In the meantime, despite the terms of the deal, Russia is sending 7,600 more soldiers to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and plans to keep military bases in both.
It is plain where the biggest problems will arise. The EU’s monitors may be welcomed in the buffer zone around South Ossetia, but they will have trouble getting into the two enclaves. Mr Lavrov has argued that, since Russia has recognised the governments of both, the Europeans should deal with them directly, something they will be reluctant to do.
Georgian minds are now turning to the economy. David Bakradze, speaker of Georgia’s parliament, believes that Russia balked at taking Tbilisi mainly because the morale of Georgians did not collapse in the face of their threat. Their tanks might have run into hundreds of thousands of protesters. Yet it is crucial to sustain the economy’s strong growth, because an economic collapse could, he suggests, be followed by political collapse—in which case Georgia could relapse into Russia’s orbit.
So far Georgia’s economy seems to be holding up, but it will be essential to maintain the flow of foreign direct investment. David Lee, who heads MagtiCom, Georgia’s biggest telecoms company (and the biggest American investment in the country), says that present investors have not been deterred, but that those looking for new opportunities might have been. Changing their minds, he says, “is now the battle that must be faced.” That is why the $1 billion in aid promised by the Americans, together with the $750m agreed in principle by the IMF, are so important, says Vladimer Papava, an economist. No doubt it is vital to repair war damage and replace lost foreign investment, but equally important is the symbolic value of this help, reassuring potential investors that Georgia is not being abandoned to Russia.
To endow this idea with more political weight, some diplomats think that Georgia might be given the equivalent of the European road maps being followed by Balkan countries, though without (for now) a promise of membership at the end. The Balkan comparison does not stop there. “The long-term implication of the Sarkozy deal,” says one diplomat, citing the pro-Western Serbian president, “is that Georgia has begun to adopt the [Boris] Tadic line.” That means pledging not to use force to regain lost lands, and focusing instead on EU integration and rebuilding the economy.
Georgia: Intercepted calls prove self-defense
www.nytimes.com
By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press Writer
TBILISI, Georgia - In a bid to portray Russia as the aggressor in last month's war, Georgia has released recordings of what it says are two intercepted cell phone calls purporting to show that Moscow invaded before Georgia's offensive against South Ossetia.
The recordings released Tuesday, if authentic, will not cut through the fog of the final hours when escalating tensions burst into war. But President Mikhail Saakashvili hopes they will help dispel a dominant narrative that says his country was on the attack. He said they prove Russian tanks and troops entered South Ossetia many hours before Georgia began its offensive against separatist forces.
"Evidence in the form of telephone intercepts and information that we have from numerous eyewitnesses conclusively prove that Russian tanks and armored columns invaded our territory before the conflict began," Saakashvili told reporters.
Together, the two purported intercepts last less than two minutes. But so far, they are Saakashvili's best argument in his bid to turn the tables against Russia.
Since the war that killed hundreds of people and drove nearly 200,000 from their homes, Moscow has relentlessly cast Saakashvili as an unstable leader who struck first, forcing a response.
Saakashvili says he tried to ease tensions with a unilateral cease-fire, but that Russia's leaders had made up their minds.
"It looks like the decision had been made in Moscow prior to that, and nothing was going to change it on the ground," Saakashvili told The Associated Press.
Russia has always cast Georgia as the aggressor, saying it only responded militarily to defend Russian citizens and peacekeeping troops in South Ossetia from a Georgian offensive that began late on Aug. 7.
Georgia says the intercepted phone calls show Russian forces entered South Ossetia before dawn that day.
The calls are between a South Ossetian border guard at the southern mouth of the Roki tunnel, which leads across the mountainous border from Russia into the separatist Georgian province, and another guard at headquarters in the regional capital, Georgia says.
The recordings were first released to The New York Times, which reported their contents Tuesday. A Georgian Interior Ministry official, Shota Utiashvili, played two of the recordings for the AP and provided printed English translations from the original Ossetian.
In the first call, which purportedly began at 3:41 a.m. on Aug. 7, the South Ossetian guard at the tunnel says "they have moved armored personnel carriers out and the tunnel is full."
In the next call, about 10 minutes later, the guard says that "armor and people" had emerged from the tunnel about 20 minutes earlier. Asked whether there was a lot of armor, the guard says, "Well, tanks, BMPs and those things."
BMPs are armored personnel carriers. The tunnel is more than two miles long.
The authenticity of the recordings could not immediately be verified.
Utiashvili said Georgia began monitoring the phones of South Ossetian militia in 2004 and had "hundreds of telephones under surveillance."
The Times said it had done its own translation of the audio files. The newspaper's translation was similar to the translation provided by Georgia, with slight differences that did not appear to change the meaning.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko dismissed the Georgian claim as "not serious." He said any major troop movements would have been easily tracked by satellites used by NATO nations.
"I would be grateful if they provide such satellite data to us and the entire global community, provide specific data," Nesterenko said sarcastically. "Allegations that they have eavesdropped on someone and heard something are simply not serious."
Saakashvili, a U.S. ally who is seeking NATO membership for Georgia, said his government has asked NATO nations to examine satellite imagery.
Asked why Georgia had not released the purported intercepts earlier, he said they were initially believed to have been lost "during the heat of the war" but were later found.
Georgia has provided the West with the intercepts and other information, he said, and would welcome an investigation.
In Washington, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman did not respond directly to the question of which side was in South Ossetia first.
"I don't think anything changes — this was a hostile" move by Russia, he said. "The operative point is that Russia invaded territory of Georgia."
Saakashvili also stressed that point.
"This is our country, we didn't go to Vladikavkaz, we didn't go to Moscow, we didn't go to Siberia," he said. "They came here."
Russia had 500 peacekeeping troops in South Ossetia before the war, so the mere presence of Russian forces in the region is not damning. But Saakashvili angrily rejected Russian suggestions that the forces in the tunnel were part of a peacekeeping rotation.
"You don't send in peacekeepers late at night with tanks," he told the AP. "Tanks are not peacekeeping vehicles. You warn about peacekeepers beforehand and we had official notification from the Russians that next peacekeeping (rotation) was going to happen end of September."
The U.S., European Union and NATO have accused Russia of using disproportionate force and are demanding it withdraw its forces to pre-conflict positions in accordance with the cease-fire.
Western government acknowledge Georgia launched an offensive against the city of Tskhinvali. But they stress that Georgia was under increasing pressure amid growing Russian support for the separatist governments of South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia.
Rather than the final hours before war, "More important is to focus on what was happening over a couple of years," said the U.S. ambassador to NATO, Kurt Volker, who was in Georgia with a NATO delegation.
He referred to economic and diplomatic moves targeting Georgia in addition to "the massing of forces in the North Caucasus" — in Russia near the Georgian border.
"No matter how we end up parsing out those few hours in the early morning of Aug. 7, Georgia was responding to a long period of Russian pressure, including violence that was going on, with shelling from South Ossetians," Volker said. "(Georgia) made the decision to go into Tskhinvali, which was the trigger the Russians were looking for to launch this pre-planned invasion."
By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press Writer
TBILISI, Georgia - In a bid to portray Russia as the aggressor in last month's war, Georgia has released recordings of what it says are two intercepted cell phone calls purporting to show that Moscow invaded before Georgia's offensive against South Ossetia.
The recordings released Tuesday, if authentic, will not cut through the fog of the final hours when escalating tensions burst into war. But President Mikhail Saakashvili hopes they will help dispel a dominant narrative that says his country was on the attack. He said they prove Russian tanks and troops entered South Ossetia many hours before Georgia began its offensive against separatist forces.
"Evidence in the form of telephone intercepts and information that we have from numerous eyewitnesses conclusively prove that Russian tanks and armored columns invaded our territory before the conflict began," Saakashvili told reporters.
Together, the two purported intercepts last less than two minutes. But so far, they are Saakashvili's best argument in his bid to turn the tables against Russia.
Since the war that killed hundreds of people and drove nearly 200,000 from their homes, Moscow has relentlessly cast Saakashvili as an unstable leader who struck first, forcing a response.
Saakashvili says he tried to ease tensions with a unilateral cease-fire, but that Russia's leaders had made up their minds.
"It looks like the decision had been made in Moscow prior to that, and nothing was going to change it on the ground," Saakashvili told The Associated Press.
Russia has always cast Georgia as the aggressor, saying it only responded militarily to defend Russian citizens and peacekeeping troops in South Ossetia from a Georgian offensive that began late on Aug. 7.
Georgia says the intercepted phone calls show Russian forces entered South Ossetia before dawn that day.
The calls are between a South Ossetian border guard at the southern mouth of the Roki tunnel, which leads across the mountainous border from Russia into the separatist Georgian province, and another guard at headquarters in the regional capital, Georgia says.
The recordings were first released to The New York Times, which reported their contents Tuesday. A Georgian Interior Ministry official, Shota Utiashvili, played two of the recordings for the AP and provided printed English translations from the original Ossetian.
In the first call, which purportedly began at 3:41 a.m. on Aug. 7, the South Ossetian guard at the tunnel says "they have moved armored personnel carriers out and the tunnel is full."
In the next call, about 10 minutes later, the guard says that "armor and people" had emerged from the tunnel about 20 minutes earlier. Asked whether there was a lot of armor, the guard says, "Well, tanks, BMPs and those things."
BMPs are armored personnel carriers. The tunnel is more than two miles long.
The authenticity of the recordings could not immediately be verified.
Utiashvili said Georgia began monitoring the phones of South Ossetian militia in 2004 and had "hundreds of telephones under surveillance."
The Times said it had done its own translation of the audio files. The newspaper's translation was similar to the translation provided by Georgia, with slight differences that did not appear to change the meaning.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko dismissed the Georgian claim as "not serious." He said any major troop movements would have been easily tracked by satellites used by NATO nations.
"I would be grateful if they provide such satellite data to us and the entire global community, provide specific data," Nesterenko said sarcastically. "Allegations that they have eavesdropped on someone and heard something are simply not serious."
Saakashvili, a U.S. ally who is seeking NATO membership for Georgia, said his government has asked NATO nations to examine satellite imagery.
Asked why Georgia had not released the purported intercepts earlier, he said they were initially believed to have been lost "during the heat of the war" but were later found.
Georgia has provided the West with the intercepts and other information, he said, and would welcome an investigation.
In Washington, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman did not respond directly to the question of which side was in South Ossetia first.
"I don't think anything changes — this was a hostile" move by Russia, he said. "The operative point is that Russia invaded territory of Georgia."
Saakashvili also stressed that point.
"This is our country, we didn't go to Vladikavkaz, we didn't go to Moscow, we didn't go to Siberia," he said. "They came here."
Russia had 500 peacekeeping troops in South Ossetia before the war, so the mere presence of Russian forces in the region is not damning. But Saakashvili angrily rejected Russian suggestions that the forces in the tunnel were part of a peacekeeping rotation.
"You don't send in peacekeepers late at night with tanks," he told the AP. "Tanks are not peacekeeping vehicles. You warn about peacekeepers beforehand and we had official notification from the Russians that next peacekeeping (rotation) was going to happen end of September."
The U.S., European Union and NATO have accused Russia of using disproportionate force and are demanding it withdraw its forces to pre-conflict positions in accordance with the cease-fire.
Western government acknowledge Georgia launched an offensive against the city of Tskhinvali. But they stress that Georgia was under increasing pressure amid growing Russian support for the separatist governments of South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia.
Rather than the final hours before war, "More important is to focus on what was happening over a couple of years," said the U.S. ambassador to NATO, Kurt Volker, who was in Georgia with a NATO delegation.
He referred to economic and diplomatic moves targeting Georgia in addition to "the massing of forces in the North Caucasus" — in Russia near the Georgian border.
"No matter how we end up parsing out those few hours in the early morning of Aug. 7, Georgia was responding to a long period of Russian pressure, including violence that was going on, with shelling from South Ossetians," Volker said. "(Georgia) made the decision to go into Tskhinvali, which was the trigger the Russians were looking for to launch this pre-planned invasion."
Russia signs treaty to defend Georgia separatists
www.reuters.com
By Denis Dyomkin
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed treaties with Georgia's South Ossetia and Abkhazia on Wednesday that committed Moscow to defend the breakaway regions from any Georgian attack.
The treaties formalize military, diplomatic and economic co-operation between Moscow and the separatist regions, which Russia recognized as independent states after its brief war with Georgia last month.
In Tbilisi, a senior Georgian diplomat said the treaties were a "masquerade" and that Russia had annexed sovereign Georgian territory.
Russia drew international condemnation after it sent its troops into Georgia last month and then recognized the regions, but it said it had a moral duty to act to defend them from what it called a genocide by Georgia's military in South Ossetia.
"The documents we have signed envisage that our countries will jointly undertake the necessary measures for counteracting threats to peace ... and opposing acts of aggression," Medvedev said after a lavish signing ceremony in the Kremlin.
"We will show each other all necessary support, including military support," Medvedev said.
"A repeat of the Georgian aggression ... would lead to a catastrophe on a regional scale, so no one should be in doubt that we will not allow new military adventures."
Western states have angered Russia by backing Georgia over the conflict. The Russian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday accused NATO of Cold War thinking after the alliance held high-level talks in Tbilisi this week.
"We cannot view steps to intensify relations between the alliance and Georgia any other way than as encouragement for new adventures," the ministry said in a statement. Georgia is seeking to join NATO, an ambition Russia opposes.
Medvedev signed the treaties with South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity and Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh. Afterwards, they shook hands and toasted each other with champagne.
The two separatist leaders were given all the trappings accorded to sovereign heads of state, with their regions' flags displayed in the Kremlin and an announcer introducing them to guests in their national languages.
Only Nicaragua has followed Moscow's lead and recognized the enclaves as independent, despite a diplomatic drive by Russia to persuade its allies to grant them recognition.
"As we were saying before, this is an unconcealed annexation of these territories by Russia. The rest is just a masquerade," Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Giga Bokeria told Reuters when asked to comment on the treaties.
"It's a violation of Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity," he said.
Moscow plans to base about 7,600 troops in the two regions, and the separatists already receive substantial economic support from the Russian government.
The treaties underlined the closeness of the relationship. The documents stated that Russia will take measures to support the functioning of the regions' financial and banking systems since the Russian rouble is their main currency.
(Additional reporting by Margarita Antidze in Tbilisi; Writing by Christian Lowe and Conor Sweeney; Editing by Dominic Evans)
By Denis Dyomkin
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed treaties with Georgia's South Ossetia and Abkhazia on Wednesday that committed Moscow to defend the breakaway regions from any Georgian attack.
The treaties formalize military, diplomatic and economic co-operation between Moscow and the separatist regions, which Russia recognized as independent states after its brief war with Georgia last month.
In Tbilisi, a senior Georgian diplomat said the treaties were a "masquerade" and that Russia had annexed sovereign Georgian territory.
Russia drew international condemnation after it sent its troops into Georgia last month and then recognized the regions, but it said it had a moral duty to act to defend them from what it called a genocide by Georgia's military in South Ossetia.
"The documents we have signed envisage that our countries will jointly undertake the necessary measures for counteracting threats to peace ... and opposing acts of aggression," Medvedev said after a lavish signing ceremony in the Kremlin.
"We will show each other all necessary support, including military support," Medvedev said.
"A repeat of the Georgian aggression ... would lead to a catastrophe on a regional scale, so no one should be in doubt that we will not allow new military adventures."
Western states have angered Russia by backing Georgia over the conflict. The Russian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday accused NATO of Cold War thinking after the alliance held high-level talks in Tbilisi this week.
"We cannot view steps to intensify relations between the alliance and Georgia any other way than as encouragement for new adventures," the ministry said in a statement. Georgia is seeking to join NATO, an ambition Russia opposes.
Medvedev signed the treaties with South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity and Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh. Afterwards, they shook hands and toasted each other with champagne.
The two separatist leaders were given all the trappings accorded to sovereign heads of state, with their regions' flags displayed in the Kremlin and an announcer introducing them to guests in their national languages.
Only Nicaragua has followed Moscow's lead and recognized the enclaves as independent, despite a diplomatic drive by Russia to persuade its allies to grant them recognition.
"As we were saying before, this is an unconcealed annexation of these territories by Russia. The rest is just a masquerade," Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Giga Bokeria told Reuters when asked to comment on the treaties.
"It's a violation of Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity," he said.
Moscow plans to base about 7,600 troops in the two regions, and the separatists already receive substantial economic support from the Russian government.
The treaties underlined the closeness of the relationship. The documents stated that Russia will take measures to support the functioning of the regions' financial and banking systems since the Russian rouble is their main currency.
(Additional reporting by Margarita Antidze in Tbilisi; Writing by Christian Lowe and Conor Sweeney; Editing by Dominic Evans)
Friday, September 12, 2008
e-mail messages from Tbilisi, Georgia
These two e-mail messages were received this morning from two friends in Tbilisi
___________________________________________
Hi Jim,
You know all the feeling of a man who has watched the war in the eyes. We try to be better and forget that fear that was in our soles for such a long time. It’s very dangerous and shocking to analyze what has happened in the 21st century with peaceful population. Why I often ask myself. Even I am so tired that I don’t want to watch TV any more not to hear horrors of the war and results.
Thank you for everything Jim
With love and peace
___________________________________________
Thank you Jim,
Now we feel better in spite of the fact that we don’t know what will happen in future. We are stressed. I feel PTSD syndrome too. Week but still I have. There are very many young soldiers and peaceful population killed. When my children and I hear the sound of the aircraft flying in the sky the first feeling is fear. In the 21st century – can you imagine?
The politicians play dirty games and make decisions and population suffers. This is all what I can tell you shortly.
Best wishes
___________________________________________
Hi Jim,
You know all the feeling of a man who has watched the war in the eyes. We try to be better and forget that fear that was in our soles for such a long time. It’s very dangerous and shocking to analyze what has happened in the 21st century with peaceful population. Why I often ask myself. Even I am so tired that I don’t want to watch TV any more not to hear horrors of the war and results.
Thank you for everything Jim
With love and peace
___________________________________________
Thank you Jim,
Now we feel better in spite of the fact that we don’t know what will happen in future. We are stressed. I feel PTSD syndrome too. Week but still I have. There are very many young soldiers and peaceful population killed. When my children and I hear the sound of the aircraft flying in the sky the first feeling is fear. In the 21st century – can you imagine?
The politicians play dirty games and make decisions and population suffers. This is all what I can tell you shortly.
Best wishes
Thursday, September 11, 2008
War in Georgia: The Israeli Connection
www.ynetnews.com
Zvi Zinger and Hanan Greenberg contributed to this report, which first appeared on, Aug. 10, 2008. Copyright © Yedioth Internet. All rights reserved.
By Arie Egozi
For The past seven years, Israeli companies have been helping the Georgian army to prepare for war against Russia through arms deals, training of infantry units and security Advice.
The fighting which broke out over the weekend between Russia and Georgia has brought Israel’s intensive involvement in the region into the limelight.
This involvement includes the sale of advanced weapons to Georgia and the training of the Georgian army’s infantry forces.
The Defense Ministry held a special meeting Sunday to discuss the various arms deals held by Israelis in Georgia, but no change in policy has been announced as of yet.
“The subject is closely monitored,” said sources in the Defense Ministry. “We are not operating in any way which may counter Israeli interests. We have turned down many requests involving arms sales to Georgia; and the ones which have been approved have been duly scrutinized. So far, we have placed no limitations on the sale of protective measures.”
Israel began selling arms to Georgia about seven years ago following an initiative by Georgian citizens who immigrated to Israel and became businesspeople.
“They contacted defense industry officials and arms dealers and told them that Georgia had relatively large budgets and could be interested in purchasing Israeli weapons,” says a source involved in exports.
The military cooperation between the countries developed swiftly. The fact that Georgia’s defense minister, Davit Kezerashvili, is a former Israeli who is fluent in Hebrew contributed to this cooperation.
“His door was always open to the Israelis who came and offered his country arms systems made in Israel,” the source said. “Compared to countries in Eastern Europe, the deals in this country were conducted fast, mainly due to the defense minister’s personal involvement.”
Among the Israelis who took advantage of the opportunity and began doing business in Georgia were former Minister Roni Milo and his brother Shlomo, former director-general of the Military Industries, Brigadier-General (Res.) Gal Hirsch and Major-General (Res.) Yisrael Ziv.
Roni Milo conducted business in Georgia for Elbit Systems and the Military Industries, and with his help Israel’s defense industries managed to sell to Georgia remote-piloted vehicles (RPVs), automatic turrets for armored vehicles, antiaircraft systems, communication systems, shells and rockets.
According to Israeli sources, Gal Hirsch gave the Georgian army advice on the establishment of elite units such as Sayeret Matkal and on rearmament, and gave various courses in the fields of combat intelligence and fighting in built-up areas.
“Don’t anger the Russians”
The Israelis operating in Georgia attempted to convince the Israeli Aerospace Industries to sell various systems20to the Georgian air force, but were turned down. The reason for the refusal was “special” relations created between the Aerospace Industries and Russia in terms of improving fighter jets produced in the former U.S.S.R. and the fear that selling weapons to Georgia would anger the Russians and prompt them to cancel the deals.
Israelis’ activity in Georgia and the deals they struck there were all authorized by the Defense Ministry. Israel viewed Georgia as a friendly state to which there is no reason not to sell arms systems similar to those Israel exports to other countries in the world.
As the tension between Russia and Georgia grew, however, increasing voices were heard in Israel—particularly in the Foreign Ministry—calling on the Defense Ministry to be more selective in the approval of the deals with Georgia for fear that they would anger Russia.
“It was clear that too many unmistakable Israeli systems in the possession of the Georgian army would be like a red cloth in the face of a raging bull as far as Russia is concerned,” explained a source in the defense establishment. For instance, the Russians viewed the operation of the Elbit System’s RPVs as a real provocation.
“It was clear that the Russians were angry,” says a defense establishment source, “and that the interception of three of these RPVs in the past three months was an expression of this anger. Not everyone in Israel understood the sensitive nerve Israel touched when it supplied such an advanced arms system to a country whose relations with Russia are highly tense.”
In May it was eventually decided to approve future deals with Georgia only for the sale of non-offensive weapon systems, such as intelligence, communications and computer systems, and not to approve deals for the sale of rifles, aircraft, shells, etc.
A senior source in the Military Industry said Saturday that despite some reports, the activity of Georgia’s military industry was extremely limited.
“We conducted a small job for them several years ago,” he said. “The rest of the deals remained on paper.”
Dov Pikulin, one of the owners of the Authentico Company specializing in trips and journeys to the area, says however that “Israelis are the main investor in the Georgian economy. Everyone is there, directly or indirectly.”
Georgian minister: Israel should be proud
“The Israelis should be proud of themselves for the Israeli training and education received by the Georgian soldiers,” Georgian Minister Temur Yakobashvili said Saturday.
Yakobashvili is a Jew and is fluent in Hebrew. “We are now in a fight against the great Russia,” he said, “and our hope is to receive assistance from the White House, because Georgia cannot survive on its own.
“It’s important that the entire world understands that what is happening in Georgia now will affect the entire world order. It’s not just Georgia’s business, but the entire world’s business.”
One of the Georgian parliament members did not settle Saturday for the call for American aid, urging Israel to help stop the Russian offensive as well: “We need help from the U.N. and from our friends, headed by the United States and Israel. Today Georgia is in danger—tomorrow all the democratic countries in the region and in the entire world will be in danger too.”
Zvi Zinger and Hanan Greenberg contributed to this report, which first appeared on
By Arie Egozi
For The past seven years, Israeli companies have been helping the Georgian army to prepare for war against Russia through arms deals, training of infantry units and security Advice.
The fighting which broke out over the weekend between Russia and Georgia has brought Israel’s intensive involvement in the region into the limelight.
This involvement includes the sale of advanced weapons to Georgia and the training of the Georgian army’s infantry forces.
The Defense Ministry held a special meeting Sunday to discuss the various arms deals held by Israelis in Georgia, but no change in policy has been announced as of yet.
“The subject is closely monitored,” said sources in the Defense Ministry. “We are not operating in any way which may counter Israeli interests. We have turned down many requests involving arms sales to Georgia; and the ones which have been approved have been duly scrutinized. So far, we have placed no limitations on the sale of protective measures.”
Israel began selling arms to Georgia about seven years ago following an initiative by Georgian citizens who immigrated to Israel and became businesspeople.
“They contacted defense industry officials and arms dealers and told them that Georgia had relatively large budgets and could be interested in purchasing Israeli weapons,” says a source involved in exports.
The military cooperation between the countries developed swiftly. The fact that Georgia’s defense minister, Davit Kezerashvili, is a former Israeli who is fluent in Hebrew contributed to this cooperation.
“His door was always open to the Israelis who came and offered his country arms systems made in Israel,” the source said. “Compared to countries in Eastern Europe, the deals in this country were conducted fast, mainly due to the defense minister’s personal involvement.”
Among the Israelis who took advantage of the opportunity and began doing business in Georgia were former Minister Roni Milo and his brother Shlomo, former director-general of the Military Industries, Brigadier-General (Res.) Gal Hirsch and Major-General (Res.) Yisrael Ziv.
Roni Milo conducted business in Georgia for Elbit Systems and the Military Industries, and with his help Israel’s defense industries managed to sell to Georgia remote-piloted vehicles (RPVs), automatic turrets for armored vehicles, antiaircraft systems, communication systems, shells and rockets.
According to Israeli sources, Gal Hirsch gave the Georgian army advice on the establishment of elite units such as Sayeret Matkal and on rearmament, and gave various courses in the fields of combat intelligence and fighting in built-up areas.
“Don’t anger the Russians”
The Israelis operating in Georgia attempted to convince the Israeli Aerospace Industries to sell various systems20to the Georgian air force, but were turned down. The reason for the refusal was “special” relations created between the Aerospace Industries and Russia in terms of improving fighter jets produced in the former U.S.S.R. and the fear that selling weapons to Georgia would anger the Russians and prompt them to cancel the deals.
Israelis’ activity in Georgia and the deals they struck there were all authorized by the Defense Ministry. Israel viewed Georgia as a friendly state to which there is no reason not to sell arms systems similar to those Israel exports to other countries in the world.
As the tension between Russia and Georgia grew, however, increasing voices were heard in Israel—particularly in the Foreign Ministry—calling on the Defense Ministry to be more selective in the approval of the deals with Georgia for fear that they would anger Russia.
“It was clear that too many unmistakable Israeli systems in the possession of the Georgian army would be like a red cloth in the face of a raging bull as far as Russia is concerned,” explained a source in the defense establishment. For instance, the Russians viewed the operation of the Elbit System’s RPVs as a real provocation.
“It was clear that the Russians were angry,” says a defense establishment source, “and that the interception of three of these RPVs in the past three months was an expression of this anger. Not everyone in Israel understood the sensitive nerve Israel touched when it supplied such an advanced arms system to a country whose relations with Russia are highly tense.”
In May it was eventually decided to approve future deals with Georgia only for the sale of non-offensive weapon systems, such as intelligence, communications and computer systems, and not to approve deals for the sale of rifles, aircraft, shells, etc.
A senior source in the Military Industry said Saturday that despite some reports, the activity of Georgia’s military industry was extremely limited.
“We conducted a small job for them several years ago,” he said. “The rest of the deals remained on paper.”
Dov Pikulin, one of the owners of the Authentico Company specializing in trips and journeys to the area, says however that “Israelis are the main investor in the Georgian economy. Everyone is there, directly or indirectly.”
Georgian minister: Israel should be proud
“The Israelis should be proud of themselves for the Israeli training and education received by the Georgian soldiers,” Georgian Minister Temur Yakobashvili said Saturday.
Yakobashvili is a Jew and is fluent in Hebrew. “We are now in a fight against the great Russia,” he said, “and our hope is to receive assistance from the White House, because Georgia cannot survive on its own.
“It’s important that the entire world understands that what is happening in Georgia now will affect the entire world order. It’s not just Georgia’s business, but the entire world’s business.”
One of the Georgian parliament members did not settle Saturday for the call for American aid, urging Israel to help stop the Russian offensive as well: “We need help from the U.N. and from our friends, headed by the United States and Israel. Today Georgia is in danger—tomorrow all the democratic countries in the region and in the entire world will be in danger too.”
How Anti-Iran Policy Contributed to War in The Caucasus
Political Pipeline
This article first appeared on www.antiwar.com, Aug. 15, 2008.
www.antiwar.com
by Muhammad Sahimi
Much has been written about the war between Russia and Georgia.
Neoconservatives, as Justin Raimondo pointed out, have suddenly discovered the “democratic” republic of Georgia, which has been a historical “victim” of the Russian “empire.” Never mind that not only was Georgia not a democracy before it was devoured by the Soviet Union in 1921, but also that the war, started by Georgia’s forces, was a strategic blunder by Georgia’s president, the confrontational, demagogic, American-trained lawyer Mikheil Saakashvili, who dared
foolishly to take on his giant neighbor, thinking naively that NATO would rush
to help him.
William Kristol, the “little Lenin” of the neoconservatives, who now has
another outlet in the op-ed page of The New York Times, opines that the U.S.
must not only give aid to Georgia, but must also help it become a member of the
“League of Democracies” that John McCain has proposed. Never mind that in
the Georgian “democracy” Saakashvili used police brutality to stop huge
demonstrations after hotly disputed elections and shut down opposition
publications, and never mind that when democratic elections in Palestine and Lebanon yielded results deemed undesirable by the U.S. (and people like Kristol), they were not only dismissed, but the voters were also punished by U.S. sanctions.
And, as Robert Parry noted, the same neoconservatives who backed the illegal
invasion of Iraq, and are now threatening to attack Iran over its nonexistent nuclear threat, are suddenly discovering respect for the rule of law and
international agreements. Even Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the United Nations,
Richard Holbrooke, who supported the Iraq invasion, got into the act, writing in The Washington Post that “Whatever mistakes Tbilisi has made, they cannot justify Russia’s actions.”
Where was Holbrooke when the U.S. invaded Panama, helped the Contra thugs in
Nicaragua, encouraged—and later supported—Saddam Hussain’s invasion of Iran, and was silent when the Saudi-Pakistani-created Taliban overthrew the internationally recognized government of Afghanistan?
In reality, the Russia-Georgia war involves three important elements:
The desire to encircle Russia with pro-U.S. clients in the former Soviet republics, from Ukraine to Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, and by setting up missile “defense” systems in Poland and the Czech Republic that are intended for the Russians, but are justified by the bogus threats posed by Iran’s missiles and its nonexistent nuclear weapons program.
Recognition, over strong and angry objection by Russia, of Kosovo as an independent state. I suppose so long as such unstable mini-states as Kosovo are clients of the U.S., their Islamic identity poses no problem to the neoconservatives. Most other Muslims, such as those in Iran, Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq, are considered dangerous.
But perhaps the most important element has to do with the control of the routes for transporting oil and gas from Central Asia and the Caucasus region to international markets and, in particular, to Western Europe. If the U.S., pressured by the Israel lobby, had not pushed for bypassing Iran, we would have perhaps been in a different situation than what we have now between Georgia and Russia, with all of its geopolitical implications.
While many have written about the causes and consequences of the war, little
emphasis has been put on the role that the U.S. government’s failed policy
toward Iran has played in this rapidly developing situation.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia and the three independent
countries that emerged on the shores of the Caspian Sea, namely, Azerbaijan,
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, declared that they would respect all the old
international and bilateral treaties that the Soviet Union had signed. Crucial
among them were two friendship treaties that had been signed by Iran and the
Soviet Union in 1921 and 1940. An article in both treaties stated, “No country
can take unilateral action regarding the Caspian Sea.” Therefore, the five
countries of the Caspian area, particularly Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, could not
unilaterally decide what to do about the resources of the Caspian Sea without
the consent of the other countries.
Even aside from the old Iran-Soviet treaties that Russia accepted legal
responsibility for after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fact is that,
according to all the international treaties, so long as a territory is in
dispute, no country can take unilateral action regarding its resources and riches.
A good example is the dispute between Iran and Kuwait over the Dorra gas fields in the northern Persian Gulf. Both countries have avoided any action toward
developing the fields, waiting for their final status to be negotiated. But,
supported by the U.S., Azerbaijan and later Kazakhstan took unilateral actions and contracted out disputed oil and gas fields. Compare this with a similar situation, the dispute between Iran and Qatar in the Persian Gulf over the giant South Pars gas field (the largest in the world). Iran, the “pariah” nation, did no work on the gas field until negotiations between the two countries resulted in a framework for the field’s development. Each country is now developing its own sector.
But that was not the end of the U.S. meddling in the affairs of that region,
particularly its wrong-headed policy toward Iran. Equally important is how
to transport the oil and gas from that region to the international markets.
The issue has remained politically charged, contributing much to the war
between Russia and Georgia.
There are several foreign-operated oil fields in the Caucasus region and
Central Asia. The oil from the ChevronTexaco-operated field of Tengiz in
Kazakhstan is transported through a pipeline north into Russia and by rail west to
the Georgian Black Sea port of Batumi. A second line was built by the Caspian
Pipeline Consortium to Novorossiisk in Russia on the Black Sea.
The Kashagan oil field in northeast Caspian is the largest of them all, but
it is still being developed. In the southern Caspian, oil from the British
Petroleum-operated field of Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli in the Caspian Sea has been
producing several hundred thousand barrels of oil per day.
The most economical way of transporting all that oil is by pipelines through
Iran. For example, the Kazakh government drafted a framework agreement for
construction of an oil pipeline from the Tengiz field to Belek on the eastern
coast of the Caspian and from there to the Iranian port of Khark, on the
Persian Gulf. The pipeline was supposed to pass through Tehran, Qom, and Esfahan.
The estimated cost for the 900-mile pipeline was only $1.2 billion. But, the U.S. strongly opposed this, and, as a result, the Tengiz oil is transported through routes that cost much more.
The French oil firm TotalFinaElf, with support from the National Iranian Oil
Company, studied a pipeline that would take crude oil from Kashagan across
the Caspian to the Iranian border. From there another pipeline was supposed to
be built to transport the Kazakh oil across Iran to its Persian Gulf export
terminals. The Russian pipeline operator, Transneft, and its Kazakh counterpart, KazTransOil, also carried out a feasibility study for developing a pipeline to Iran in order to link Omsk, in Siberia, with Iran’s port Neka on the Caspian Sea. That pipeline would have allowed Russian, Turkmen and Kazakh crude oil to be swapped for Iranian oil in its terminals on the Persian Gulf.
Although some oil-swapping does take place between Iran and the Central Asian
countries, U.S. opposition and pressure have prevented the pipeline from
becoming a reality.
But the most contentious issue was about transporting Azerbaijan’s oil to
international market. All that had to be done was the construction of a
pipeline from Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, to the Iranian border, a short distance
away. From there, an Iranian pipeline, when upgraded, could have taken the oil
to the Persian Gulf terminals. But the U.S., pressured by the Israel lobby, opposed this pipeline. Israel wanted to reward Turkey for having established close diplomatic and military relationships with it. Therefore, its lobby went to work in Washington to advocate an alternative route through Turkey.
The result is the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline that connects the Sangachal Terminal in Baku to the Marine Terminal in the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea, a 1,100-mile pipeline, 155 miles of which passes through Georgia. It was built at a cost of $4 billion and was officially inaugurated on May 25, 2005.
The Baku-Tehran-Khark (BTK) pipeline could have been constructed at a fraction of the cost of the BTC pipeline. Another great advantage of the BTK pipeline would have been the fact that it would have passed through the politically stable Iran, whereas the BTC pipeline passes not only through Georgia, but also through the restive Kurdish areas of Turkey. The entire pipeline requires constant guarding in order to prevent sabotage. On Aug. 6, 2008, the pipeline was shut off by a major explosion and fire in the eastern Turkish province of Erzincan. The Kurdistan Workers Party took responsibility for the attack.
The vulnerability of the Georgian portion of the BTC pipeline was also
manifestly demonstrated when Russia bombed the areas around the pipeline’s route in
Georgia, just to send the “proper” message to the West.
One bogus justification for the construc tion of the costly BTC pipeline was
that it would transport oil from several large Azeri oil fields to international markets, totaling 1 million barrels/day, without involving Iran or Russia. That has not happened. The Kurdashi field did not live up to the Italian oil firm Agip’s expectations. TotalFinaElf failed to find any significant oil in the Lenkoran-Talysh field, and ExxonMobil could not find any oil in its Oguz and Zafar-Mashal concessions. Chevron’s work yielded only lackluster results in its Absheron field. These failures would have made the BTK pipeline even more economical.
But all such advantages of the BTK pipeline were set aside. Instead a political pipeline was built, just to satisfy the Israel lobby. Its construction was also accompanied by numerous violations of human rights by both the Azeri and Turkish governments, which have been documented in the Czech documentary film “Zdroj” (“Source”) and by Kurdish human rights activists.
But the U.S., following Israel’s lead, was not yet done with its blind
opposition to Iran’s participation in the oil and natural gas market of the
Caucasus and Central Asian regions, which would have made negotiations regarding
Iran’s nuclear program more susceptible to success. The U.S. even pressured Kazakhstan to build a trans-Caspian pipeline from the Kazakh port of Aktau to Baku, in order to connect the Kashagan’s oil to the BTC pipeline, which would have been a gigantic environmental disaster waiting to happen. But Russian and Iranian opposition killed that project.
Thus, had the U.S. not decided that, in order to isolate Iran to appease the Israel lobby, it would make a minor nation like Georgia the cornerstone of its policy in the Caucasus/Central Asia region; had the U.S. not demonized Iran, creating “threats” from its nonexistent nuclear weapon program to justify what it does in Europe against Russia; and had the U.S. agreed to economical oil pipelines through Iran, not a political one through unstable, war-torn regions in Georgia and Turkey, the Georgia-Russia war would not have seemed as significant, and the U.S. and NATO would not have looked so impotent. In fact, the war might not have happened at all.
But this is what happens when our foreign policy is held hostage by a foreign nation and its lobby.
This article first appeared on www.antiwar.com
www.antiwar.com
by Muhammad Sahimi
Much has been written about the war between Russia and Georgia.
Neoconservatives, as Justin Raimondo pointed out, have suddenly discovered the “democratic” republic of Georgia, which has been a historical “victim” of the Russian “empire.” Never mind that not only was Georgia not a democracy before it was devoured by the Soviet Union in 1921, but also that the war, started by Georgia’s forces, was a strategic blunder by Georgia’s president, the confrontational, demagogic, American-trained lawyer Mikheil Saakashvili, who dared
foolishly to take on his giant neighbor, thinking naively that NATO would rush
to help him.
William Kristol, the “little Lenin” of the neoconservatives, who now has
another outlet in the op-ed page of The New York Times, opines that the U.S.
must not only give aid to Georgia, but must also help it become a member of the
“League of Democracies” that John McCain has proposed. Never mind that in
the Georgian “democracy” Saakashvili used police brutality to stop huge
demonstrations after hotly disputed elections and shut down opposition
publications, and never mind that when democratic elections in Palestine and Lebanon yielded results deemed undesirable by the U.S. (and people like Kristol), they were not only dismissed, but the voters were also punished by U.S. sanctions.
And, as Robert Parry noted, the same neoconservatives who backed the illegal
invasion of Iraq, and are now threatening to attack Iran over its nonexistent nuclear threat, are suddenly discovering respect for the rule of law and
international agreements. Even Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the United Nations,
Richard Holbrooke, who supported the Iraq invasion, got into the act, writing in The Washington Post that “Whatever mistakes Tbilisi has made, they cannot justify Russia’s actions.”
Where was Holbrooke when the U.S. invaded Panama, helped the Contra thugs in
Nicaragua, encouraged—and later supported—Saddam Hussain’s invasion of Iran, and was silent when the Saudi-Pakistani-created Taliban overthrew the internationally recognized government of Afghanistan?
In reality, the Russia-Georgia war involves three important elements:
The desire to encircle Russia with pro-U.S. clients in the former Soviet republics, from Ukraine to Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, and by setting up missile “defense” systems in Poland and the Czech Republic that are intended for the Russians, but are justified by the bogus threats posed by Iran’s missiles and its nonexistent nuclear weapons program.
Recognition, over strong and angry objection by Russia, of Kosovo as an independent state. I suppose so long as such unstable mini-states as Kosovo are clients of the U.S., their Islamic identity poses no problem to the neoconservatives. Most other Muslims, such as those in Iran, Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq, are considered dangerous.
But perhaps the most important element has to do with the control of the routes for transporting oil and gas from Central Asia and the Caucasus region to international markets and, in particular, to Western Europe. If the U.S., pressured by the Israel lobby, had not pushed for bypassing Iran, we would have perhaps been in a different situation than what we have now between Georgia and Russia, with all of its geopolitical implications.
While many have written about the causes and consequences of the war, little
emphasis has been put on the role that the U.S. government’s failed policy
toward Iran has played in this rapidly developing situation.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia and the three independent
countries that emerged on the shores of the Caspian Sea, namely, Azerbaijan,
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, declared that they would respect all the old
international and bilateral treaties that the Soviet Union had signed. Crucial
among them were two friendship treaties that had been signed by Iran and the
Soviet Union in 1921 and 1940. An article in both treaties stated, “No country
can take unilateral action regarding the Caspian Sea.” Therefore, the five
countries of the Caspian area, particularly Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, could not
unilaterally decide what to do about the resources of the Caspian Sea without
the consent of the other countries.
Even aside from the old Iran-Soviet treaties that Russia accepted legal
responsibility for after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fact is that,
according to all the international treaties, so long as a territory is in
dispute, no country can take unilateral action regarding its resources and riches.
A good example is the dispute between Iran and Kuwait over the Dorra gas fields in the northern Persian Gulf. Both countries have avoided any action toward
developing the fields, waiting for their final status to be negotiated. But,
supported by the U.S., Azerbaijan and later Kazakhstan took unilateral actions and contracted out disputed oil and gas fields. Compare this with a similar situation, the dispute between Iran and Qatar in the Persian Gulf over the giant South Pars gas field (the largest in the world). Iran, the “pariah” nation, did no work on the gas field until negotiations between the two countries resulted in a framework for the field’s development. Each country is now developing its own sector.
But that was not the end of the U.S. meddling in the affairs of that region,
particularly its wrong-headed policy toward Iran. Equally important is how
to transport the oil and gas from that region to the international markets.
The issue has remained politically charged, contributing much to the war
between Russia and Georgia.
There are several foreign-operated oil fields in the Caucasus region and
Central Asia. The oil from the ChevronTexaco-operated field of Tengiz in
Kazakhstan is transported through a pipeline north into Russia and by rail west to
the Georgian Black Sea port of Batumi. A second line was built by the Caspian
Pipeline Consortium to Novorossiisk in Russia on the Black Sea.
The Kashagan oil field in northeast Caspian is the largest of them all, but
it is still being developed. In the southern Caspian, oil from the British
Petroleum-operated field of Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli in the Caspian Sea has been
producing several hundred thousand barrels of oil per day.
The most economical way of transporting all that oil is by pipelines through
Iran. For example, the Kazakh government drafted a framework agreement for
construction of an oil pipeline from the Tengiz field to Belek on the eastern
coast of the Caspian and from there to the Iranian port of Khark, on the
Persian Gulf. The pipeline was supposed to pass through Tehran, Qom, and Esfahan.
The estimated cost for the 900-mile pipeline was only $1.2 billion. But, the U.S. strongly opposed this, and, as a result, the Tengiz oil is transported through routes that cost much more.
The French oil firm TotalFinaElf, with support from the National Iranian Oil
Company, studied a pipeline that would take crude oil from Kashagan across
the Caspian to the Iranian border. From there another pipeline was supposed to
be built to transport the Kazakh oil across Iran to its Persian Gulf export
terminals. The Russian pipeline operator, Transneft, and its Kazakh counterpart, KazTransOil, also carried out a feasibility study for developing a pipeline to Iran in order to link Omsk, in Siberia, with Iran’s port Neka on the Caspian Sea. That pipeline would have allowed Russian, Turkmen and Kazakh crude oil to be swapped for Iranian oil in its terminals on the Persian Gulf.
Although some oil-swapping does take place between Iran and the Central Asian
countries, U.S. opposition and pressure have prevented the pipeline from
becoming a reality.
But the most contentious issue was about transporting Azerbaijan’s oil to
international market. All that had to be done was the construction of a
pipeline from Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, to the Iranian border, a short distance
away. From there, an Iranian pipeline, when upgraded, could have taken the oil
to the Persian Gulf terminals. But the U.S., pressured by the Israel lobby, opposed this pipeline. Israel wanted to reward Turkey for having established close diplomatic and military relationships with it. Therefore, its lobby went to work in Washington to advocate an alternative route through Turkey.
The result is the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline that connects the Sangachal Terminal in Baku to the Marine Terminal in the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea, a 1,100-mile pipeline, 155 miles of which passes through Georgia. It was built at a cost of $4 billion and was officially inaugurated on May 25, 2005.
The Baku-Tehran-Khark (BTK) pipeline could have been constructed at a fraction of the cost of the BTC pipeline. Another great advantage of the BTK pipeline would have been the fact that it would have passed through the politically stable Iran, whereas the BTC pipeline passes not only through Georgia, but also through the restive Kurdish areas of Turkey. The entire pipeline requires constant guarding in order to prevent sabotage. On Aug. 6, 2008, the pipeline was shut off by a major explosion and fire in the eastern Turkish province of Erzincan. The Kurdistan Workers Party took responsibility for the attack.
The vulnerability of the Georgian portion of the BTC pipeline was also
manifestly demonstrated when Russia bombed the areas around the pipeline’s route in
Georgia, just to send the “proper” message to the West.
One bogus justification for the construc tion of the costly BTC pipeline was
that it would transport oil from several large Azeri oil fields to international markets, totaling 1 million barrels/day, without involving Iran or Russia. That has not happened. The Kurdashi field did not live up to the Italian oil firm Agip’s expectations. TotalFinaElf failed to find any significant oil in the Lenkoran-Talysh field, and ExxonMobil could not find any oil in its Oguz and Zafar-Mashal concessions. Chevron’s work yielded only lackluster results in its Absheron field. These failures would have made the BTK pipeline even more economical.
But all such advantages of the BTK pipeline were set aside. Instead a political pipeline was built, just to satisfy the Israel lobby. Its construction was also accompanied by numerous violations of human rights by both the Azeri and Turkish governments, which have been documented in the Czech documentary film “Zdroj” (“Source”) and by Kurdish human rights activists.
But the U.S., following Israel’s lead, was not yet done with its blind
opposition to Iran’s participation in the oil and natural gas market of the
Caucasus and Central Asian regions, which would have made negotiations regarding
Iran’s nuclear program more susceptible to success. The U.S. even pressured Kazakhstan to build a trans-Caspian pipeline from the Kazakh port of Aktau to Baku, in order to connect the Kashagan’s oil to the BTC pipeline, which would have been a gigantic environmental disaster waiting to happen. But Russian and Iranian opposition killed that project.
Thus, had the U.S. not decided that, in order to isolate Iran to appease the Israel lobby, it would make a minor nation like Georgia the cornerstone of its policy in the Caucasus/Central Asia region; had the U.S. not demonized Iran, creating “threats” from its nonexistent nuclear weapon program to justify what it does in Europe against Russia; and had the U.S. agreed to economical oil pipelines through Iran, not a political one through unstable, war-torn regions in Georgia and Turkey, the Georgia-Russia war would not have seemed as significant, and the U.S. and NATO would not have looked so impotent. In fact, the war might not have happened at all.
But this is what happens when our foreign policy is held hostage by a foreign nation and its lobby.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Looting, fires rage in South Ossetia: rights groups
www.reuters.com
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Neither South Ossetia's local government nor the Russian army are providing adequate security for citizens in the breakaway territory after last month's Russia-Georgia war, rights groups said on Thursday.
Representatives of U.S.-based Human Rights Watch and Russian group Memorial were reporting on a trip to the province, which until the conflict was a patchwork of South Ossetian and ethnic Georgian villages.
"South Ossetian authorities are not ensuring the defence of property of residents of Georgian enclave villages or the safety of people remaining there," said Alexander Cherkasov of Memorial.
"Currently the (ethnic) Georgian villages we visited...are practically burnt to the ground. Now, a month after military operations, the final houses are being torched, and every day we saw new fires."
Georgia and Russia went to war on August 7-8 after Tbilisi ordered artillery strikes on the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali in a bid to recapture the rebel, pro-Russian region.
South Ossetia had declared de facto independence in the 1990s, though remained de jure within Georgia proper. A tri-partite peacekeeping mission with Russia had maintained a semblance of order for over a decade.
Georgia says it had to attack to prevent its peacekeepers from being killed by South Ossetian troops. Russia says it was morally obliged to invade to prevent what it called "genocide."
In the days following Russia's military push into Georgia and its subsequent drubbing of well-equipped but improperly managed Georgian forces, irregular troops and bandits began looting and burning civilian homes in the region.
"Danger remains not just for Georgian and mixed families, but for Ossetian villagers as well from looters who, sensing their impunity, steal and torch not just what belongs to Georgians, but any abandoned home," Cherkasov said.
Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch said checkpoints first established by the Russian army to stop looting had initially worked, but as they were removed armed irregulars returned to continue their raids on civilians.
"Russian troops set up block posts and were able to prevent the death of hundreds of ethnic Georgians at the time. Unfortunately this is no longer happening," Lokshina said.
Lokshina said during the visit to South Ossetia they saw armed irregulars looting furniture, fixtures and valuables from homes in the area. "The enclaves are still burning, and they made no attempt to hide it," she said.
(Reporting by Chris Baldwin, editing by Mark Trevelyan)
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Neither South Ossetia's local government nor the Russian army are providing adequate security for citizens in the breakaway territory after last month's Russia-Georgia war, rights groups said on Thursday.
Representatives of U.S.-based Human Rights Watch and Russian group Memorial were reporting on a trip to the province, which until the conflict was a patchwork of South Ossetian and ethnic Georgian villages.
"South Ossetian authorities are not ensuring the defence of property of residents of Georgian enclave villages or the safety of people remaining there," said Alexander Cherkasov of Memorial.
"Currently the (ethnic) Georgian villages we visited...are practically burnt to the ground. Now, a month after military operations, the final houses are being torched, and every day we saw new fires."
Georgia and Russia went to war on August 7-8 after Tbilisi ordered artillery strikes on the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali in a bid to recapture the rebel, pro-Russian region.
South Ossetia had declared de facto independence in the 1990s, though remained de jure within Georgia proper. A tri-partite peacekeeping mission with Russia had maintained a semblance of order for over a decade.
Georgia says it had to attack to prevent its peacekeepers from being killed by South Ossetian troops. Russia says it was morally obliged to invade to prevent what it called "genocide."
In the days following Russia's military push into Georgia and its subsequent drubbing of well-equipped but improperly managed Georgian forces, irregular troops and bandits began looting and burning civilian homes in the region.
"Danger remains not just for Georgian and mixed families, but for Ossetian villagers as well from looters who, sensing their impunity, steal and torch not just what belongs to Georgians, but any abandoned home," Cherkasov said.
Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch said checkpoints first established by the Russian army to stop looting had initially worked, but as they were removed armed irregulars returned to continue their raids on civilians.
"Russian troops set up block posts and were able to prevent the death of hundreds of ethnic Georgians at the time. Unfortunately this is no longer happening," Lokshina said.
Lokshina said during the visit to South Ossetia they saw armed irregulars looting furniture, fixtures and valuables from homes in the area. "The enclaves are still burning, and they made no attempt to hide it," she said.
(Reporting by Chris Baldwin, editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Georgia breaks ties with Russia, welcomes EU summit outcome
www.chinaview.cn
MOSCOW, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- Russia does not intend to apologize for its actions in the recent conflict with Georgia, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Saturday.
"We do not need to apologize to anyone, we are certain that we are right, nor are we going to argue," Putin said in an interview with the Rossiya television channel.
The Russian prime minister said cooperation between Russia and the West should not be cooled down due to the crisis in the Caucasus.
Russia has resources without which its "partners can't exist or it'll be very difficult for them," while what Russia receives from its international partners is available on many other global platforms, Putin said.
Georgia sent in troops to reclaim its breakaway region of South Ossetia on Aug. 8, triggering a military counter-offensive by Russia. The conflict ended with a cease-fire agreement between Tbilisi and Moscow brokered by France.
Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the other breakaway region of Georgia, as independent states last week has further strained its relations with the former Soviet republic.
MOSCOW, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- Russia does not intend to apologize for its actions in the recent conflict with Georgia, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Saturday.
"We do not need to apologize to anyone, we are certain that we are right, nor are we going to argue," Putin said in an interview with the Rossiya television channel.
The Russian prime minister said cooperation between Russia and the West should not be cooled down due to the crisis in the Caucasus.
Russia has resources without which its "partners can't exist or it'll be very difficult for them," while what Russia receives from its international partners is available on many other global platforms, Putin said.
Georgia sent in troops to reclaim its breakaway region of South Ossetia on Aug. 8, triggering a military counter-offensive by Russia. The conflict ended with a cease-fire agreement between Tbilisi and Moscow brokered by France.
Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the other breakaway region of Georgia, as independent states last week has further strained its relations with the former Soviet republic.
EU favors int'l probe into Georgia crisis, deployment of observers
www.chinaview.cn
AVIGNON, France, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- European Union (EU) foreign ministers have agreed that there is a need for an international investigation into the recent conflict between Georgia and Russia and the deployment of an EU observer mission to monitor the implementation of a peace deal.
"We all stressed that there is a need for an international investigation as to how the crisis developed in Georgia," said French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who chaired the foreign ministers' meeting, on Saturday.
The European Union (EU) wants to be a "more equal partner" to the United States, said EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner on Friday.
"That investigation needs to be launched as soon as possible," he said.
However, Kouchner failed to give details of the modality of such an investigation. He indicated that it could involve international bodies, non-governmental organizations or the United Nations.
He noted that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he would immediately send a fact-finding mission to South Ossetia.
Georgia launched a sudden attack in South Ossetia on Aug. 7 in an attempt to regain control of the breakaway region. Tbilisi's move triggered prompt reaction from Russia, whose troops drove Georgian forces out of the region and took parts of Georgian territory.
Since the start of the conflict, Tbilisi and Moscow have been accusing each other of ethnic cleansing.
The immediate developments to the military conflict remains a myth.
Solana's spokeswoman, Cristina Gallach, said Friday that Solana talked to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on the morning of Aug. 7 and urged him to show restraint in face of the escalating tension between Georgia and Russia.
Saakashvili told Solana that he had offered a cease-fire to the Russians. Gallach said she could not explain why the conflict started before midnight on Aug. 7.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who brokered a six-point peace plan, travels to Moscow and Tbilisi on Monday in an attempt to secure a complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia proper.
The six-point peace plan provides for withdrawal of Georgian and Russian troops to pre-conflict positions.
The West is accusing Russia of failing to honor its commitments by establishing security zones on the border of South Ossetia and another breakaway region of Abkhazia.
The West also condemned Russia for its recognition of the two regions as independent states.
On Saturday, the EU foreign ministers also agreed in principle to send an observer mission to Georgia to monitor the implementation of a peace plan between the Caucasian country and Russia.
"We will have an observer mission in Georgia," EU foreign policy and security chief Javier Solana said at the end of an informal EU foreign ministers' meeting.
Such a mission would be the EU's first in Caucasus, although it has had experience in the Balkans, noted Solana.
He said a formal decision is expected at a formal foreign ministers' meeting on Sept. 15. The decision will take into account the results of Sarkozy's trip to Moscow and Tbilisi on Monday.
Sarkozy will be accompanied by European Commission President Manuel Barroso and Solana.
The size of the observer mission is yet to be decided. But there are words that its staff could be in hundreds.
Russia has refused to allow Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) observers to re-enter South Ossetia after the Georgia-Russia conflict.
Kouchner asked Russia to withdraw its troops from Georgia proper. At the same time, he stressed the need for the EU to maintain dialogue with Russia.
"Russia is a great country and Russia is our neighbor. No doubt, we must find the way to talk to each other," he said.
AVIGNON, France, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- European Union (EU) foreign ministers have agreed that there is a need for an international investigation into the recent conflict between Georgia and Russia and the deployment of an EU observer mission to monitor the implementation of a peace deal.
"We all stressed that there is a need for an international investigation as to how the crisis developed in Georgia," said French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who chaired the foreign ministers' meeting, on Saturday.
The European Union (EU) wants to be a "more equal partner" to the United States, said EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner on Friday.
"That investigation needs to be launched as soon as possible," he said.
However, Kouchner failed to give details of the modality of such an investigation. He indicated that it could involve international bodies, non-governmental organizations or the United Nations.
He noted that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he would immediately send a fact-finding mission to South Ossetia.
Georgia launched a sudden attack in South Ossetia on Aug. 7 in an attempt to regain control of the breakaway region. Tbilisi's move triggered prompt reaction from Russia, whose troops drove Georgian forces out of the region and took parts of Georgian territory.
Since the start of the conflict, Tbilisi and Moscow have been accusing each other of ethnic cleansing.
The immediate developments to the military conflict remains a myth.
Solana's spokeswoman, Cristina Gallach, said Friday that Solana talked to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on the morning of Aug. 7 and urged him to show restraint in face of the escalating tension between Georgia and Russia.
Saakashvili told Solana that he had offered a cease-fire to the Russians. Gallach said she could not explain why the conflict started before midnight on Aug. 7.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who brokered a six-point peace plan, travels to Moscow and Tbilisi on Monday in an attempt to secure a complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia proper.
The six-point peace plan provides for withdrawal of Georgian and Russian troops to pre-conflict positions.
The West is accusing Russia of failing to honor its commitments by establishing security zones on the border of South Ossetia and another breakaway region of Abkhazia.
The West also condemned Russia for its recognition of the two regions as independent states.
On Saturday, the EU foreign ministers also agreed in principle to send an observer mission to Georgia to monitor the implementation of a peace plan between the Caucasian country and Russia.
"We will have an observer mission in Georgia," EU foreign policy and security chief Javier Solana said at the end of an informal EU foreign ministers' meeting.
Such a mission would be the EU's first in Caucasus, although it has had experience in the Balkans, noted Solana.
He said a formal decision is expected at a formal foreign ministers' meeting on Sept. 15. The decision will take into account the results of Sarkozy's trip to Moscow and Tbilisi on Monday.
Sarkozy will be accompanied by European Commission President Manuel Barroso and Solana.
The size of the observer mission is yet to be decided. But there are words that its staff could be in hundreds.
Russia has refused to allow Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) observers to re-enter South Ossetia after the Georgia-Russia conflict.
Kouchner asked Russia to withdraw its troops from Georgia proper. At the same time, he stressed the need for the EU to maintain dialogue with Russia.
"Russia is a great country and Russia is our neighbor. No doubt, we must find the way to talk to each other," he said.
Italian PM says to make diplomatic efforts to solve Georgia issue
www.chinaview.cn
ROME, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday that his government would continue to make diplomatic efforts to solve a recent crisis between Russia and Georgia.
During a joint press conference with visiting U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, Berlusconi said he had worked "to prevent what happened in Georgia and South Ossetia from becoming, rather than an isolated incident, a detonator that could push history back years to the Cold War."
Georgia rolled in troops to retake its breakaway region of South Ossetia early August, triggering a Russian military surge that drove out the Georgian forces.
Russia recognized South Ossetia and Georgia's another breakaway region of Abkhazia as independent states on Aug. 26.
After talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy Monday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to withdraw all Russian forces from Georgia except South Ossetia and Abkhazia within a month.
Berlusconi said it is inevitable that Russia and NATO strengthen cooperation, adding the international community should make joint efforts in tackling crises in the world and fighting terrorism.
Cheney strongly condemned Russia's latest military operations in Georgia, saying Georgia and Ukraine have every right to develop their ties with Western countries including their joining into NATO.
He spoke highly of Italy's role of sending troops to Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Kosovo to keep peace and stability there.
Cheney kicked off a visit to Italy Saturday after a tour to Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Georgia, three ex-Soviet republics.
Editor: Jiang Yuxia
ROME, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday that his government would continue to make diplomatic efforts to solve a recent crisis between Russia and Georgia.
During a joint press conference with visiting U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, Berlusconi said he had worked "to prevent what happened in Georgia and South Ossetia from becoming, rather than an isolated incident, a detonator that could push history back years to the Cold War."
Georgia rolled in troops to retake its breakaway region of South Ossetia early August, triggering a Russian military surge that drove out the Georgian forces.
Russia recognized South Ossetia and Georgia's another breakaway region of Abkhazia as independent states on Aug. 26.
After talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy Monday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to withdraw all Russian forces from Georgia except South Ossetia and Abkhazia within a month.
Berlusconi said it is inevitable that Russia and NATO strengthen cooperation, adding the international community should make joint efforts in tackling crises in the world and fighting terrorism.
Cheney strongly condemned Russia's latest military operations in Georgia, saying Georgia and Ukraine have every right to develop their ties with Western countries including their joining into NATO.
He spoke highly of Italy's role of sending troops to Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Kosovo to keep peace and stability there.
Cheney kicked off a visit to Italy Saturday after a tour to Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Georgia, three ex-Soviet republics.
Editor: Jiang Yuxia
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Russia calls for UN arms embargo against Georgia
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/09/09/news/UN-UN-Russia-Georgia.php
The Associated Press
September 9, 2008
UNITED NATIONS: Russia called Tuesday for a U.N. arms embargo against Georgia despite certain U.S. opposition.
Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin circulated a draft resolution to the Security Council that would order all countries to take measures to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer of arms to Georgia.
He said Moscow wants to make the point that Georgia's military build-up in the last six years — from a defense budget of US$18 million to US$900 million — was put to very bad use in attacking Russian-backed separatists in South Ossetia last month.
Churkin was asked whether it was realistic to push for an arms embargo against Georgia when the Americans clearly won't accept it.
"Well I know that strong opposition from some members of the Security Council, particularly the United States, can be expected, but we believe that it was absolutely necessary to make this political statement by introducing this draft resolution," Churkin replied.
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The United States and Russia are both veto-wielding members of the Security Council.
Ben Chang, a spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, said: "We do not believe that this affirms the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Georgia which is for us the bottom line of any Security Council action on Georgia."
"We see this as an attempt by Russia to divert attention from the situation on the ground, specifically, that they have not lived up to their own obligations under the cease-fire to withdraw their forces from the territory of Georgia, and they continue to block humanitarian access," Chang said.
Russia drew harsh criticism from the U.S. and Europe for recognizing South Ossetia and another separatist territory, Abkhazia, as independent states following the short but devastating war that left Russian troops in locations deep inside Georgia including near the key Georgian Black Sea port of Poti.
The conflict followed an escalation of incidents by pro-Russian separatists from South Ossetia and Abkhazia and was sparked by Georgia's attempt to use force to retake control of South Ossetia.
The draft resolution expresses concern "at the excessive increase in Georgia's military expenditures and the acquisition by the Georgian government of armaments far surpassing the national defense requirements," which Russia said had led to "a destabilizing accumulation of arms and the use of armed violence in the zone of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict."
The United States has been training Georgian troops, and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has suggested Washington was to blame for the war for helping the Georgian military rebuild.
"We believe that some countries are taking active efforts to start rearming Georgia and are already allocating large sums of money for that," Churkin said, without identifying any countries.
The draft would also condemn "the military hostilities unleashed by Georgia which constitute a gross violation" of agreements in 1992 and 1996 to settle the Georgian-Ossetian conflict.
Churkin told reporters he briefed council members on Monday's meeting between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and France's President Nicolas Sarkozy in Moscow.
Medvedev pledged to withdraw Russian troops from key areas of Georgia after 200 European Union monitors are deployed later this month.
But Russia said it will keep 7,600 troops in Abkhazia and South Ossetia for the foreseeable future, and it was unclear whether the Russians would pull out all troops occupying regions surrounding South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Churkin said the Medvedev-Sarkozy document calls for international talks to start in Geneva on Oct. 15 on stability and security in the region. He added that "demilitarization of Georgia could be a very useful topic for discussion."
He noted that the Security Council is supposed to extend the mandate of the U.N. observer mission in Abkhazia by Oct. 15. The United Nations has maintained an observer mission since 1993 to monitor a cease-fire between Georgia and Abkhazia.
In light of both events, Churkin said Russia was planning to hold an informal meeting of Security Council members and representatives of Abkhazia and South Ossetia on Oct. 7 or 8. He said he also told council members that "under the current circumstances it would be impossible" to hold a council meeting to extend the U.N. mission's mandate in Abkhazia without the participation of the official representative of Abkhazia.
The Associated Press
September 9, 2008
UNITED NATIONS: Russia called Tuesday for a U.N. arms embargo against Georgia despite certain U.S. opposition.
Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin circulated a draft resolution to the Security Council that would order all countries to take measures to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer of arms to Georgia.
He said Moscow wants to make the point that Georgia's military build-up in the last six years — from a defense budget of US$18 million to US$900 million — was put to very bad use in attacking Russian-backed separatists in South Ossetia last month.
Churkin was asked whether it was realistic to push for an arms embargo against Georgia when the Americans clearly won't accept it.
"Well I know that strong opposition from some members of the Security Council, particularly the United States, can be expected, but we believe that it was absolutely necessary to make this political statement by introducing this draft resolution," Churkin replied.
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The United States and Russia are both veto-wielding members of the Security Council.
Ben Chang, a spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, said: "We do not believe that this affirms the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Georgia which is for us the bottom line of any Security Council action on Georgia."
"We see this as an attempt by Russia to divert attention from the situation on the ground, specifically, that they have not lived up to their own obligations under the cease-fire to withdraw their forces from the territory of Georgia, and they continue to block humanitarian access," Chang said.
Russia drew harsh criticism from the U.S. and Europe for recognizing South Ossetia and another separatist territory, Abkhazia, as independent states following the short but devastating war that left Russian troops in locations deep inside Georgia including near the key Georgian Black Sea port of Poti.
The conflict followed an escalation of incidents by pro-Russian separatists from South Ossetia and Abkhazia and was sparked by Georgia's attempt to use force to retake control of South Ossetia.
The draft resolution expresses concern "at the excessive increase in Georgia's military expenditures and the acquisition by the Georgian government of armaments far surpassing the national defense requirements," which Russia said had led to "a destabilizing accumulation of arms and the use of armed violence in the zone of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict."
The United States has been training Georgian troops, and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has suggested Washington was to blame for the war for helping the Georgian military rebuild.
"We believe that some countries are taking active efforts to start rearming Georgia and are already allocating large sums of money for that," Churkin said, without identifying any countries.
The draft would also condemn "the military hostilities unleashed by Georgia which constitute a gross violation" of agreements in 1992 and 1996 to settle the Georgian-Ossetian conflict.
Churkin told reporters he briefed council members on Monday's meeting between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and France's President Nicolas Sarkozy in Moscow.
Medvedev pledged to withdraw Russian troops from key areas of Georgia after 200 European Union monitors are deployed later this month.
But Russia said it will keep 7,600 troops in Abkhazia and South Ossetia for the foreseeable future, and it was unclear whether the Russians would pull out all troops occupying regions surrounding South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Churkin said the Medvedev-Sarkozy document calls for international talks to start in Geneva on Oct. 15 on stability and security in the region. He added that "demilitarization of Georgia could be a very useful topic for discussion."
He noted that the Security Council is supposed to extend the mandate of the U.N. observer mission in Abkhazia by Oct. 15. The United Nations has maintained an observer mission since 1993 to monitor a cease-fire between Georgia and Abkhazia.
In light of both events, Churkin said Russia was planning to hold an informal meeting of Security Council members and representatives of Abkhazia and South Ossetia on Oct. 7 or 8. He said he also told council members that "under the current circumstances it would be impossible" to hold a council meeting to extend the U.N. mission's mandate in Abkhazia without the participation of the official representative of Abkhazia.
Russia to Ramp Up Military Presence in Georgian Territories
Breakaway republics will host bases with 3,600 Russian soldiers each
September 9, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/09/AR2008090900983.html?hpid=topnews
by: Philip P. Pan, The Washington Post
Moscow - Russia plans to more than double its military presence in the breakaway Georgian republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and station troops there indefinitely, officials said Tuesday, a day after President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to withdraw Russian forces from the rest of Georgia by Oct. 11.
Speaking at a news briefing, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russian troops would remain in the separatist regions "for a long time. Their presence there will be needed at least for the foreseeable future to prevent any relapses of aggressive actions." Separately, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov was quoted telling Medvedev in a meeting that the two republics had agreed to host bases with about 3,600 Russian soldiers each.
Before last month's war with Georgia, the Russian military stationed about 1,000 troops in South Ossetia and 2,500 in Abkhazia as peacekeeping forces, and Russian officials had suggested they intended to keep troops in the disputed regions after last month's five-day war with Georgia.
But Tuesday's statements were the clearest and most detailed indication of the Kremlin's plans to date. The timing of the announcement, a day after Medvedev agreed in talks with European leaders to withdraw troops from other parts of Georgia, seemed intended to emphasize Russia's determination to support the secession of the two regions despite strong Western objections.
"I hope that, as a minimum, this will stop the Georgian military regime from committing any idiotic actions," Medvedev told the defense minister in remarks carried by the Interfax news agency.
The decision to withdraw troops from all Georgian territory outside the two disputed regions came during negotiations Monday with a European delegation led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and it represented a significant concession by Russia after weeks of tough talk in the face of European and American condemnation of its invasion of Georgia.
At a joint news conference with Medvedev, Sarkozy said Russian forces would withdraw from five checkpoints between the Black Sea port of Poti and the Georgian city of Senaki within a week, and from positions in all other undisputed parts of Georgia within a month. The E.U. pledged to send a team of international observers into Georgia to take the place of Russian troops.
But the standoff between Russia and the West over the broader question of Georgia's territorial integrity remained unresolved. Even as he agreed to pull back troops, Medvedev again voiced strong support for the breakaway republics that are at the heart of the conflict. Moscow has recognized both as independent states.
"We have made our choice. This is a final and definitive choice, an irrevocable decision," Medvedev said of his government's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia following its military victory.
The two regions enjoyed de facto autonomy within Georgia for more than a decade before Russia's decision to formally recognize their secession. Russia said it was compelled to act after Georgia abandoned peace talks and attempted to seize South Ossetia by force on Aug. 7, but the West denounced the move as an attempt to unilaterally redraw Georgia's borders.
Russia has also argued that South Ossetia and Abkhazia have a stronger case for independence than Kosovo, the Serbian province that the United States and much of Europe recognized as independent in February over Moscow's objections.
Asked whether Europe had in effect acquiesced to Russia's recognition of the two breakaway regions, Sarkozy bristled and said the issue would be revisited in further talks Oct. 15 in Geneva.
"It was not up to Russia to define Georgia's borders or frontiers," he said. "The Russians will say what they wish to say. We have condemned the Russian position."
Sarkozy flew on to the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, on Monday to talk with President Mikheil Saakashvili. After their meeting, Saakashvili called the agreement "a step forward" and expressed gratitude to the European negotiators, comparing what he called their "21st-century" diplomacy with the "Stalinian solutions or 19th-century solutions" offered by the Russians.
Alexander Lomaia, secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, applauded the clear deadlines in the agreement but added, "The bad news is that it doesn't refer to territorial integrity."
Separately, in its most concrete gesture of protest to date, the Bush administration on Monday withdrew from congressional consideration a civilian nuclear cooperation deal with Moscow that had once been celebrated as a symbol of the strength of U.S.-Russian relations. "We make this decision with regret," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement in Washington. "Unfortunately, given the current environment, the time is not right for this agreement."
The agreement to pull back Russian troops, presumably into South Ossetia and Abkhazia, follows an earlier cease-fire deal brokered by Sarkozy that had also called for a Russian withdrawal. Russian forces withdrew from much of the territory they occupied in Georgia after that agreement, but continued to maintain "security zones" on Georgian soil near South Ossetia and Abkhazia over Western objections. Russian officials said the cease-fire agreement allowed them to patrol such zones to deter Georgian attacks against the breakaway regions.
Under Monday's agreement, the E.U. will send 200 monitors into the region no later than Oct. 1, joining U.N. and other international observers. Russia said it would withdraw its troops within 10 days of the E.U. deployment.
Russia said Monday that it will send a naval squadron and long-range patrol planes to Venezuela this year for a joint military exercise in the Caribbean, the Associated Press reported. Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko insisted the decision was made before Russia's war with Georgia.
--------
Correspondent Tara Bahrampour in Tbilisi contributed to this report.
September 9, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/09/AR2008090900983.html?hpid=topnews
by: Philip P. Pan, The Washington Post
Moscow - Russia plans to more than double its military presence in the breakaway Georgian republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and station troops there indefinitely, officials said Tuesday, a day after President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to withdraw Russian forces from the rest of Georgia by Oct. 11.
Speaking at a news briefing, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russian troops would remain in the separatist regions "for a long time. Their presence there will be needed at least for the foreseeable future to prevent any relapses of aggressive actions." Separately, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov was quoted telling Medvedev in a meeting that the two republics had agreed to host bases with about 3,600 Russian soldiers each.
Before last month's war with Georgia, the Russian military stationed about 1,000 troops in South Ossetia and 2,500 in Abkhazia as peacekeeping forces, and Russian officials had suggested they intended to keep troops in the disputed regions after last month's five-day war with Georgia.
But Tuesday's statements were the clearest and most detailed indication of the Kremlin's plans to date. The timing of the announcement, a day after Medvedev agreed in talks with European leaders to withdraw troops from other parts of Georgia, seemed intended to emphasize Russia's determination to support the secession of the two regions despite strong Western objections.
"I hope that, as a minimum, this will stop the Georgian military regime from committing any idiotic actions," Medvedev told the defense minister in remarks carried by the Interfax news agency.
The decision to withdraw troops from all Georgian territory outside the two disputed regions came during negotiations Monday with a European delegation led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and it represented a significant concession by Russia after weeks of tough talk in the face of European and American condemnation of its invasion of Georgia.
At a joint news conference with Medvedev, Sarkozy said Russian forces would withdraw from five checkpoints between the Black Sea port of Poti and the Georgian city of Senaki within a week, and from positions in all other undisputed parts of Georgia within a month. The E.U. pledged to send a team of international observers into Georgia to take the place of Russian troops.
But the standoff between Russia and the West over the broader question of Georgia's territorial integrity remained unresolved. Even as he agreed to pull back troops, Medvedev again voiced strong support for the breakaway republics that are at the heart of the conflict. Moscow has recognized both as independent states.
"We have made our choice. This is a final and definitive choice, an irrevocable decision," Medvedev said of his government's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia following its military victory.
The two regions enjoyed de facto autonomy within Georgia for more than a decade before Russia's decision to formally recognize their secession. Russia said it was compelled to act after Georgia abandoned peace talks and attempted to seize South Ossetia by force on Aug. 7, but the West denounced the move as an attempt to unilaterally redraw Georgia's borders.
Russia has also argued that South Ossetia and Abkhazia have a stronger case for independence than Kosovo, the Serbian province that the United States and much of Europe recognized as independent in February over Moscow's objections.
Asked whether Europe had in effect acquiesced to Russia's recognition of the two breakaway regions, Sarkozy bristled and said the issue would be revisited in further talks Oct. 15 in Geneva.
"It was not up to Russia to define Georgia's borders or frontiers," he said. "The Russians will say what they wish to say. We have condemned the Russian position."
Sarkozy flew on to the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, on Monday to talk with President Mikheil Saakashvili. After their meeting, Saakashvili called the agreement "a step forward" and expressed gratitude to the European negotiators, comparing what he called their "21st-century" diplomacy with the "Stalinian solutions or 19th-century solutions" offered by the Russians.
Alexander Lomaia, secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, applauded the clear deadlines in the agreement but added, "The bad news is that it doesn't refer to territorial integrity."
Separately, in its most concrete gesture of protest to date, the Bush administration on Monday withdrew from congressional consideration a civilian nuclear cooperation deal with Moscow that had once been celebrated as a symbol of the strength of U.S.-Russian relations. "We make this decision with regret," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement in Washington. "Unfortunately, given the current environment, the time is not right for this agreement."
The agreement to pull back Russian troops, presumably into South Ossetia and Abkhazia, follows an earlier cease-fire deal brokered by Sarkozy that had also called for a Russian withdrawal. Russian forces withdrew from much of the territory they occupied in Georgia after that agreement, but continued to maintain "security zones" on Georgian soil near South Ossetia and Abkhazia over Western objections. Russian officials said the cease-fire agreement allowed them to patrol such zones to deter Georgian attacks against the breakaway regions.
Under Monday's agreement, the E.U. will send 200 monitors into the region no later than Oct. 1, joining U.N. and other international observers. Russia said it would withdraw its troops within 10 days of the E.U. deployment.
Russia said Monday that it will send a naval squadron and long-range patrol planes to Venezuela this year for a joint military exercise in the Caribbean, the Associated Press reported. Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko insisted the decision was made before Russia's war with Georgia.
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Correspondent Tara Bahrampour in Tbilisi contributed to this report.
Russia Agrees to Limited Pullout From Georgia
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/world/europe/09georgia.html?emc=tnt&tntemail
By ELLEN BARRY and DAN BILEFSKY
Published: September 8, 2008
MOSCOW — After a tense four-hour meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, announced Monday that Russia agreed to withdraw its troops by mid-October from its positions in Georgia outside the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
He also agreed to allow 200 observers from the European Union to monitor the conflict, a step that Russia had resisted. But Mr. Medvedev said Russia would stand by its decision to recognize the two breakaway regions as independent nations.
“We have made our choice,” he said at a joint news conference afterward. “This is a final and irreversible choice. This is an irrevocable decision.”
Mr. Medvedev’s comments were greeted defiantly by the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, in Tbilisi, where Mr. Sarkozy brought the agreement later on Monday.
Mr. Saakashvili offered cautious approval of the deal but openly questioned whether Moscow could be trusted, saying he had received written assurances from the European Union that it would protect Georgia’s territorial integrity.
“There is no way Georgia will ever give up a piece of its sovereignty, a piece of its territory,” he said. “Of course they should get the hell out of the territories they control.”
Mr. Sarkozy’s grueling day underlined the challenge facing European mediators as they try to bring the two sides together. The conflict has become a test for the European Union’s ambition to become a major foreign policy player on a par with the United States, and a personal credibility test for the French president, who currently holds the bloc’s rotating presidency.
Mr. Sarkozy’s task is harder because the European Union has been bitterly divided over how to manage its relationship with Russia. Some member nations, like France, have struggled to safeguard Europe’s economic interests in Russia, while formerly Communist countries like Poland want the bloc to punish Russia for failing to uphold human rights and respect democratic norms.
At times, Mr. Sarkozy’s frustration showed — as when a reporter in Moscow asked if he had allowed Russia to alter Georgia’s borders.
“It was not up to Russia to define Georgia’s borders or frontiers,” he said. “The Russians will say what they wish to say.”
The conflict began Aug. 7, when Georgia attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali and Russian troops poured across the border in response. More than a month later, Russian troops continue to occupy Georgian territory outside the enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia despite a cease-fire agreement that called on both sides to withdraw troops to their positions before the fighting broke out.
Throughout the crisis, Russia has excoriated the American role in the region, but welcomed intervention by the European Union. As he stood beside Mr. Sarkozy, praising the Europeans as “our natural partners, our key partners,” Mr. Medvedev claimed that the United States was responsible for the attacks on Tskhinvali.
Georgia, he said, “received the blessing of one government. I can’t say how it was given, whether through direct instruction or tacit approval. But there is no doubt that it happened.”
He continued: “They launched an idiotic escapade. People were killed. And now all of Georgia is paying for it.”
If implemented, the agreement will go a long way toward reconciling outstanding conflicts from the original cease-fire agreement reached on Aug. 12. The roughly 200 European Union observers, working with monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, would replace Russian peacekeepers in the security zone outside the two enclaves and in other disputed areas, so that Russian troops would pull back.
The agreement also requires Russia to withdraw five peacekeeping posts in the west of Georgia, between the cities of Poti and Senaki, within seven days. In return, Georgia is required to withdraw its forces to their bases by Oct. 1. Mr. Medvedev also said he had received a written commitment by Georgia, backed by France and the European Union, that it would not use force on the enclaves.
In an interview after a news conference in Tbilisi, Mr. Saakashvili said he had refused to sign a document pledging not to use force because that matter was covered in the cease-fire deal of Aug. 12.
Monday’s agreement — and, in particular, Russian cooperation with Mr. Sarkozy — could have an impact among European leaders, said Tomas Valasek, a foreign policy specialist at the Center for European Reform, a research group in London.
“Those within Europe who have argued for nonconfrontation and against isolating Russia, like Germany, will now feel justified,” he said. “They will say engagement works.”
The decision came a day before European officials were due to meet in France for discussions, to be attended by President Viktor A. Yushchenko of Ukraine, on whether to offer Ukraine the possibility of future membership in the European Union, a move that Russia opposes. Monday’s announcement makes Ukraine’s case less likely to move forward, Mr. Valasek said.
Russia plans to establish formal diplomatic relations with governments in Sukhumi and Tskhinvali, the Abkhaz and South Ossetian capitals, on Tuesday. Two weeks after Mr. Medvedev announced the decision to formally recognize them, Nicaragua has followed suit.
Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, said Monday that the Belorussian Parliament might take up the matter after elections this month.
At the news conference, Mr. Medvedev said he was certain that over time, other governments would come to accept the new borders.
“We realize everything changes in this world, including recognition or nonrecognition of this or that state,” he said. “This is a reality that should be taken into account by our European partners.”
“If our colleagues are ready to do it right here and right now,” he added, “we wouldn’t be opposed to it.”
Meanwhile, Georgia and Russia carried their dispute over the breakaway enclaves to the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Monday, as three days of hearings began over Georgia’s request for an injunction ordering Russia to stop “terrorizing” ethnic Georgians and to allow refugees to return to their homes.
Georgia’s first deputy minister of justice, Tina Bujaliani, said her country was urgently turning to the court, the United Nations’ highest, “at a time of great distress in its history, a time when hundreds of thousands of its nationals are persecuted and displaced from their homes only because they are Georgians.”
Russia, as expected, challenged the court’s jurisdiction and asked it to dismiss the Georgian application.
Ellen Barry reported from Moscow, and Dan Bilefsky from Tbilisi, Georgia. Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York, Michael Schwirtz from Moscow, and Marlise Simons from Paris.
By ELLEN BARRY and DAN BILEFSKY
Published: September 8, 2008
MOSCOW — After a tense four-hour meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, announced Monday that Russia agreed to withdraw its troops by mid-October from its positions in Georgia outside the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
He also agreed to allow 200 observers from the European Union to monitor the conflict, a step that Russia had resisted. But Mr. Medvedev said Russia would stand by its decision to recognize the two breakaway regions as independent nations.
“We have made our choice,” he said at a joint news conference afterward. “This is a final and irreversible choice. This is an irrevocable decision.”
Mr. Medvedev’s comments were greeted defiantly by the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, in Tbilisi, where Mr. Sarkozy brought the agreement later on Monday.
Mr. Saakashvili offered cautious approval of the deal but openly questioned whether Moscow could be trusted, saying he had received written assurances from the European Union that it would protect Georgia’s territorial integrity.
“There is no way Georgia will ever give up a piece of its sovereignty, a piece of its territory,” he said. “Of course they should get the hell out of the territories they control.”
Mr. Sarkozy’s grueling day underlined the challenge facing European mediators as they try to bring the two sides together. The conflict has become a test for the European Union’s ambition to become a major foreign policy player on a par with the United States, and a personal credibility test for the French president, who currently holds the bloc’s rotating presidency.
Mr. Sarkozy’s task is harder because the European Union has been bitterly divided over how to manage its relationship with Russia. Some member nations, like France, have struggled to safeguard Europe’s economic interests in Russia, while formerly Communist countries like Poland want the bloc to punish Russia for failing to uphold human rights and respect democratic norms.
At times, Mr. Sarkozy’s frustration showed — as when a reporter in Moscow asked if he had allowed Russia to alter Georgia’s borders.
“It was not up to Russia to define Georgia’s borders or frontiers,” he said. “The Russians will say what they wish to say.”
The conflict began Aug. 7, when Georgia attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali and Russian troops poured across the border in response. More than a month later, Russian troops continue to occupy Georgian territory outside the enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia despite a cease-fire agreement that called on both sides to withdraw troops to their positions before the fighting broke out.
Throughout the crisis, Russia has excoriated the American role in the region, but welcomed intervention by the European Union. As he stood beside Mr. Sarkozy, praising the Europeans as “our natural partners, our key partners,” Mr. Medvedev claimed that the United States was responsible for the attacks on Tskhinvali.
Georgia, he said, “received the blessing of one government. I can’t say how it was given, whether through direct instruction or tacit approval. But there is no doubt that it happened.”
He continued: “They launched an idiotic escapade. People were killed. And now all of Georgia is paying for it.”
If implemented, the agreement will go a long way toward reconciling outstanding conflicts from the original cease-fire agreement reached on Aug. 12. The roughly 200 European Union observers, working with monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, would replace Russian peacekeepers in the security zone outside the two enclaves and in other disputed areas, so that Russian troops would pull back.
The agreement also requires Russia to withdraw five peacekeeping posts in the west of Georgia, between the cities of Poti and Senaki, within seven days. In return, Georgia is required to withdraw its forces to their bases by Oct. 1. Mr. Medvedev also said he had received a written commitment by Georgia, backed by France and the European Union, that it would not use force on the enclaves.
In an interview after a news conference in Tbilisi, Mr. Saakashvili said he had refused to sign a document pledging not to use force because that matter was covered in the cease-fire deal of Aug. 12.
Monday’s agreement — and, in particular, Russian cooperation with Mr. Sarkozy — could have an impact among European leaders, said Tomas Valasek, a foreign policy specialist at the Center for European Reform, a research group in London.
“Those within Europe who have argued for nonconfrontation and against isolating Russia, like Germany, will now feel justified,” he said. “They will say engagement works.”
The decision came a day before European officials were due to meet in France for discussions, to be attended by President Viktor A. Yushchenko of Ukraine, on whether to offer Ukraine the possibility of future membership in the European Union, a move that Russia opposes. Monday’s announcement makes Ukraine’s case less likely to move forward, Mr. Valasek said.
Russia plans to establish formal diplomatic relations with governments in Sukhumi and Tskhinvali, the Abkhaz and South Ossetian capitals, on Tuesday. Two weeks after Mr. Medvedev announced the decision to formally recognize them, Nicaragua has followed suit.
Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, said Monday that the Belorussian Parliament might take up the matter after elections this month.
At the news conference, Mr. Medvedev said he was certain that over time, other governments would come to accept the new borders.
“We realize everything changes in this world, including recognition or nonrecognition of this or that state,” he said. “This is a reality that should be taken into account by our European partners.”
“If our colleagues are ready to do it right here and right now,” he added, “we wouldn’t be opposed to it.”
Meanwhile, Georgia and Russia carried their dispute over the breakaway enclaves to the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Monday, as three days of hearings began over Georgia’s request for an injunction ordering Russia to stop “terrorizing” ethnic Georgians and to allow refugees to return to their homes.
Georgia’s first deputy minister of justice, Tina Bujaliani, said her country was urgently turning to the court, the United Nations’ highest, “at a time of great distress in its history, a time when hundreds of thousands of its nationals are persecuted and displaced from their homes only because they are Georgians.”
Russia, as expected, challenged the court’s jurisdiction and asked it to dismiss the Georgian application.
Ellen Barry reported from Moscow, and Dan Bilefsky from Tbilisi, Georgia. Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York, Michael Schwirtz from Moscow, and Marlise Simons from Paris.
Polish TV crew freed in South Ossetia
http://www.polskieradio.pl/thenews/news/?id=90997
September 9, 2008
A crew from the Polish National Television (TVP), detained yesterday by a patrol of Ossetian police, has been freed.
In the morning journalists were taken to a border crossing to Georgia where they were handed over to the Georgian party. No charges were leveled against the crew.
The journalists revealed that they were taken for spies and accused of co-operation with Georgian intelligence.
The crew was detained on a road from Gori to Tskhinvali, near the city of Karaleti, where the Russian buffer zone starts. Reporter Dariusz Bohatkiewicz and cameraman Marcin WesoĊowski, as well as their Georgian driver Lewan Guliaszwili were preparing material for the evening news.
The police confiscated their entire equipment, including cameras and mobile phones.
After the initial questioning the detained were transported to the South Ossetia’s capital Tskhinvali where they were interrogated for a second time. Later on the journalists were transported to a school in the capital’s suburbs where they spent the night. (jm)
September 9, 2008
A crew from the Polish National Television (TVP), detained yesterday by a patrol of Ossetian police, has been freed.
In the morning journalists were taken to a border crossing to Georgia where they were handed over to the Georgian party. No charges were leveled against the crew.
The journalists revealed that they were taken for spies and accused of co-operation with Georgian intelligence.
The crew was detained on a road from Gori to Tskhinvali, near the city of Karaleti, where the Russian buffer zone starts. Reporter Dariusz Bohatkiewicz and cameraman Marcin WesoĊowski, as well as their Georgian driver Lewan Guliaszwili were preparing material for the evening news.
The police confiscated their entire equipment, including cameras and mobile phones.
After the initial questioning the detained were transported to the South Ossetia’s capital Tskhinvali where they were interrogated for a second time. Later on the journalists were transported to a school in the capital’s suburbs where they spent the night. (jm)
Memo From Tbilisi
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/world/europe/08georgians.html?em
Within a Russian-Infused Culture, a Complex Reckoning After a War
By DAN BILEFSKY and MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Published: September 7, 2008
TBILISI, Georgia — When a Russian-language theater troupe from Georgia went to St. Petersburg a few years ago to stage a darkly satirical play about modern Russia — featuring a mentally impaired child named Vladimir who brings the country to ruin and a Stalinist plot to create a master race through artificial insemination — much of the Russian audience hissed and booed before leaving early.
Avto Varsimashvili, the Georgian director of the play, “Russian Blues,” said he expected it to inspire the opposite reaction when it opened in Georgia next year. But he insisted it was the caustic Georgian sense of humor, rather than an anti-Russian mania spurred by the recent war between Georgia and Russia, that would help make the play a success.
“Georgians have always had a deep affection for Russian people and Russian culture going back centuries,” said Mr. Varsimashvili, speaking in fluent Russian at his theater in a multiethnic neighborhood of Tbilisi plastered with posters showing graphic pictures of Georgians bombed in the recent war.
“We perceive a modern Russia that is big and sometimes monstrous,” he said. “But the difference between Georgians and Russians is that we have never mistaken the Russian people for the Russian government.”
The war and its aftermath have nevertheless been greeted with an anti-Russian backlash that is spilling over into politics and culture. A popular rap video, which has been run repeatedly on state television, shows an image of the head of Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister, attached to the body of a rat stomping on a map of Georgia, under the words the “evil vampire.” Also, the government of Georgia has cut off Georgians’ access to Russian television and Web sites, while both countries have officially cut off diplomatic relations.
Yet the reality here is more complex. Although the Georgian government has spent the years since the Soviet Union fell promoting Georgian identity, Georgian society remains infused with an appreciation for Russian culture that Georgian sociologists and historians say will outlive this latest round of tensions.
A monument to Alexander Pushkin, a Russian poet and icon who once visited Tbilisi for inspiration, stands in a park just off Freedom Square in the city. Georgian television channels routinely broadcast old Russian films, kiosks sell Russian-language fashion magazines and Russian pop music blares from taxi radios. While Georgians proudly cling to their distinct centuries-old language, Russian is the second language here.
Even some of those victimized by the Russian bombings said they perceived the conflict as a proxy battle between two global powers — Russia and the United States — rather than a vendetta between Georgians and Russians.
“We hate the policies of the Russian government, but we do not hate the Russian people,” said Zura Pushauvi, looking over the rubble of his bombed-out casino in Gori, a central Georgian city. A statue of Stalin, Georgia’s best-known son, peered from outside a shattered window. “This war was a spat between two global powers. It was not an ethnic war between Georgians and Russians.”
Georgia has long had an ambivalent relationship with its former colonial ruler. Georgian princes benefited from Russian protection against the Persian and Ottoman armies in the 19th century, although Russia abolished the Georgian monarchy and squashed the separate identity of its Orthodox church. In the early 20th century, a nascent independent Georgian state was quashed by the Soviet Red Army.
Some ethnic Russians living in Georgia, of which there are around 70,000, said the war had forced them to choose sides. Nadejna Diakonova-Giuashvili, an ethnic Russian whose late husband was a Georgian officer in the Russian Army, recently escaped to a refugee center in Gori after fleeing from her bombed-out Georgian village near South Ossetia. She said she was now ashamed to be Russian.
“I’m so ashamed to look in the eyes of my neighbors after what Russia has done,” she said, speaking in both Russian and Georgian. “I only learned my husband was Georgian when he signed his name on the marriage registry the day we were married,” she said. “He spoke fluent Russian, and he tricked me. But I didn’t care. We have the same blood.”
Some ethnic Russians here said bubbling anti-Russian sentiment had forced them to conceal their Russian identity, even as they insisted they had no intention of leaving Georgia, where they had lived for decades.
Vera Tsereteli, who moved from Moscow to Tbilisi more than 30 years ago, said her Georgian friends still greeted her with a kiss even as they teased her by calling her an “occupier.” She is unable to speak Georgian, and she said she was now wary of speaking Russian in public.
“During Soviet times, it was prestigious to speak Russian and a sign of being educated and refined,” she said. “Now, Russia is associated with occupation, annexation and refugees.”
Irina Minasyan, a Russian-speaking Georgian of Armenian descent, said she feared her 13-year-old son, Edgar, could face limited career prospects because he attended a Russian school in Tbilisi. “A lot of people have switched their children from Russian to Georgian schools since the war began,” she said. “The young generation is anti-Russian, and I worry about Edgar’s future.”
Sozar Subari, Georgia’s human rights ombudsman, whose job is to monitor human rights abuses in Georgia, said he had received no complaints of violence against ethnic Russians since the war began. He emphasized that the country’s Russian-language schools were an integral part of a multiethnic Georgia and would not be closed.
A generational divide in Georgian attitudes toward Russia was apparent on a recent day at Teremok, a popular Russian restaurant in Tbilisi. Dimitry Dotiashvili, 34, a hotel security guard, said the younger generation preferred speaking English to Russian and wanted to link Georgia inextricably to NATO and the European Union. He said he loved Tolstoy and pelmeni, Russian dumplings, even as he feared Russian nuclear bombs.
A survey of Georgian attitudes toward Russia in June by the Tbilisi-based Institute for Polling and Marketing showed that 76 percent of Georgians were against war with Russia.
“We want to hold on to the illusion of a Russia that loves us because Russia has for so long been part of our lives,” said Gocha Tskitishvili, the director of the institute.
Russians, meanwhile, have traditionally vacationed in Georgia, whether to soak in Tbilisi’s sulfur baths or to relax on Batumi’s Black Sea beaches. Georgian cuisine, with its spicy plum and pepper sauces and khachapuri, a cheese-filled flat bread, is among the most popular in Russia, and there is barely a major Russian city from Moscow to Vladivostok without a Georgian restaurant.
Yet the backlash against Georgians living in Russia appears to be far more pronounced than the sentiment against Russians being stirred in Georgia. “Once again they have begun to endlessly show us programs about Georgian thieves,” Grigory Chkhartishvili, a Georgian native and one of Russia’s most popular authors, who writes under the pseudonym Boris Akunin, recently told Echo of Moscow, an independent Russian radio station. “The entire country is beginning to hate Georgians.”
Within a Russian-Infused Culture, a Complex Reckoning After a War
By DAN BILEFSKY and MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Published: September 7, 2008
TBILISI, Georgia — When a Russian-language theater troupe from Georgia went to St. Petersburg a few years ago to stage a darkly satirical play about modern Russia — featuring a mentally impaired child named Vladimir who brings the country to ruin and a Stalinist plot to create a master race through artificial insemination — much of the Russian audience hissed and booed before leaving early.
Avto Varsimashvili, the Georgian director of the play, “Russian Blues,” said he expected it to inspire the opposite reaction when it opened in Georgia next year. But he insisted it was the caustic Georgian sense of humor, rather than an anti-Russian mania spurred by the recent war between Georgia and Russia, that would help make the play a success.
“Georgians have always had a deep affection for Russian people and Russian culture going back centuries,” said Mr. Varsimashvili, speaking in fluent Russian at his theater in a multiethnic neighborhood of Tbilisi plastered with posters showing graphic pictures of Georgians bombed in the recent war.
“We perceive a modern Russia that is big and sometimes monstrous,” he said. “But the difference between Georgians and Russians is that we have never mistaken the Russian people for the Russian government.”
The war and its aftermath have nevertheless been greeted with an anti-Russian backlash that is spilling over into politics and culture. A popular rap video, which has been run repeatedly on state television, shows an image of the head of Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister, attached to the body of a rat stomping on a map of Georgia, under the words the “evil vampire.” Also, the government of Georgia has cut off Georgians’ access to Russian television and Web sites, while both countries have officially cut off diplomatic relations.
Yet the reality here is more complex. Although the Georgian government has spent the years since the Soviet Union fell promoting Georgian identity, Georgian society remains infused with an appreciation for Russian culture that Georgian sociologists and historians say will outlive this latest round of tensions.
A monument to Alexander Pushkin, a Russian poet and icon who once visited Tbilisi for inspiration, stands in a park just off Freedom Square in the city. Georgian television channels routinely broadcast old Russian films, kiosks sell Russian-language fashion magazines and Russian pop music blares from taxi radios. While Georgians proudly cling to their distinct centuries-old language, Russian is the second language here.
Even some of those victimized by the Russian bombings said they perceived the conflict as a proxy battle between two global powers — Russia and the United States — rather than a vendetta between Georgians and Russians.
“We hate the policies of the Russian government, but we do not hate the Russian people,” said Zura Pushauvi, looking over the rubble of his bombed-out casino in Gori, a central Georgian city. A statue of Stalin, Georgia’s best-known son, peered from outside a shattered window. “This war was a spat between two global powers. It was not an ethnic war between Georgians and Russians.”
Georgia has long had an ambivalent relationship with its former colonial ruler. Georgian princes benefited from Russian protection against the Persian and Ottoman armies in the 19th century, although Russia abolished the Georgian monarchy and squashed the separate identity of its Orthodox church. In the early 20th century, a nascent independent Georgian state was quashed by the Soviet Red Army.
Some ethnic Russians living in Georgia, of which there are around 70,000, said the war had forced them to choose sides. Nadejna Diakonova-Giuashvili, an ethnic Russian whose late husband was a Georgian officer in the Russian Army, recently escaped to a refugee center in Gori after fleeing from her bombed-out Georgian village near South Ossetia. She said she was now ashamed to be Russian.
“I’m so ashamed to look in the eyes of my neighbors after what Russia has done,” she said, speaking in both Russian and Georgian. “I only learned my husband was Georgian when he signed his name on the marriage registry the day we were married,” she said. “He spoke fluent Russian, and he tricked me. But I didn’t care. We have the same blood.”
Some ethnic Russians here said bubbling anti-Russian sentiment had forced them to conceal their Russian identity, even as they insisted they had no intention of leaving Georgia, where they had lived for decades.
Vera Tsereteli, who moved from Moscow to Tbilisi more than 30 years ago, said her Georgian friends still greeted her with a kiss even as they teased her by calling her an “occupier.” She is unable to speak Georgian, and she said she was now wary of speaking Russian in public.
“During Soviet times, it was prestigious to speak Russian and a sign of being educated and refined,” she said. “Now, Russia is associated with occupation, annexation and refugees.”
Irina Minasyan, a Russian-speaking Georgian of Armenian descent, said she feared her 13-year-old son, Edgar, could face limited career prospects because he attended a Russian school in Tbilisi. “A lot of people have switched their children from Russian to Georgian schools since the war began,” she said. “The young generation is anti-Russian, and I worry about Edgar’s future.”
Sozar Subari, Georgia’s human rights ombudsman, whose job is to monitor human rights abuses in Georgia, said he had received no complaints of violence against ethnic Russians since the war began. He emphasized that the country’s Russian-language schools were an integral part of a multiethnic Georgia and would not be closed.
A generational divide in Georgian attitudes toward Russia was apparent on a recent day at Teremok, a popular Russian restaurant in Tbilisi. Dimitry Dotiashvili, 34, a hotel security guard, said the younger generation preferred speaking English to Russian and wanted to link Georgia inextricably to NATO and the European Union. He said he loved Tolstoy and pelmeni, Russian dumplings, even as he feared Russian nuclear bombs.
A survey of Georgian attitudes toward Russia in June by the Tbilisi-based Institute for Polling and Marketing showed that 76 percent of Georgians were against war with Russia.
“We want to hold on to the illusion of a Russia that loves us because Russia has for so long been part of our lives,” said Gocha Tskitishvili, the director of the institute.
Russians, meanwhile, have traditionally vacationed in Georgia, whether to soak in Tbilisi’s sulfur baths or to relax on Batumi’s Black Sea beaches. Georgian cuisine, with its spicy plum and pepper sauces and khachapuri, a cheese-filled flat bread, is among the most popular in Russia, and there is barely a major Russian city from Moscow to Vladivostok without a Georgian restaurant.
Yet the backlash against Georgians living in Russia appears to be far more pronounced than the sentiment against Russians being stirred in Georgia. “Once again they have begun to endlessly show us programs about Georgian thieves,” Grigory Chkhartishvili, a Georgian native and one of Russia’s most popular authors, who writes under the pseudonym Boris Akunin, recently told Echo of Moscow, an independent Russian radio station. “The entire country is beginning to hate Georgians.”
International Court Hears Georgian Case
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/world/europe/09hague.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=&oref=slogin
By MARLISE SIMONS
Published: September 8, 2008
PARIS — Georgia and Russia carried their dispute over the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to the International Court of Justice on Monday, as three days of hearings began over Georgia’s request for an injunction ordering Russia to stop “terrorizing” ethnic Georgians and to allow refugees to return to their homes.
Georgia’s first deputy minister of justice, Tina Bujaliani, said her country was urgently turning to the court — the United Nations’ highest — “at a time of great distress in its history, a time when hundreds of thousands of its nationals are persecuted and displaced from their homes only because they are Georgians.”
Russia, as expected, challenged the court’s jurisdiction and asked it to dismiss the Georgian application. Roman Kolodkin, the legal department director at Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the judges that Georgia had provoked the current crisis last month when it began an attack to recover control of South Ossetia. He said that Russia had no choice but to become involved to prevent further deaths, and that now that the two regions were independent, Russia could not be held responsible.
Georgia, offering sworn witness statements and satellite images taken during the conflict, argued that ethnic Georgians still living in the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia continued to be driven from their villages by a “systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing” organized by Russia.
Payam Akhavan, a lawyer representing Georgia, said a distinction should be drawn between destruction resulting from the fighting and a systematic campaign against ethnic Georgian civilians. “The satellite images showed hundreds of houses burning, houses with missing roofs,” he said in a telephone interview. “This is damage from deliberate torching, quite different from war damage.”
The commercial satellite images were analyzed by a Geneva-based United Nations agency, Unosat. Human Rights Watch, which has also looked at the images, said that destruction of five ethnic Georgian villages near the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali “was caused by intentional burning and not armed conflict.”
Mr. Akhavan said that the conflict had already displaced some 160,000 ethnic Georgians.
“The pattern is continuing, but it is done more quietly without the burning and killing but through pressuring people,” he said, citing reports that residents near Akhalgori, a Georgian town south of South Ossetia, were being told they could only stay “if they have a Russian passport.”
Georgia filed an earlier case against Russia before the same court, on Aug. 12, shortly after the conflict began, charging Moscow with racial discrimination.
By MARLISE SIMONS
Published: September 8, 2008
PARIS — Georgia and Russia carried their dispute over the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to the International Court of Justice on Monday, as three days of hearings began over Georgia’s request for an injunction ordering Russia to stop “terrorizing” ethnic Georgians and to allow refugees to return to their homes.
Georgia’s first deputy minister of justice, Tina Bujaliani, said her country was urgently turning to the court — the United Nations’ highest — “at a time of great distress in its history, a time when hundreds of thousands of its nationals are persecuted and displaced from their homes only because they are Georgians.”
Russia, as expected, challenged the court’s jurisdiction and asked it to dismiss the Georgian application. Roman Kolodkin, the legal department director at Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the judges that Georgia had provoked the current crisis last month when it began an attack to recover control of South Ossetia. He said that Russia had no choice but to become involved to prevent further deaths, and that now that the two regions were independent, Russia could not be held responsible.
Georgia, offering sworn witness statements and satellite images taken during the conflict, argued that ethnic Georgians still living in the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia continued to be driven from their villages by a “systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing” organized by Russia.
Payam Akhavan, a lawyer representing Georgia, said a distinction should be drawn between destruction resulting from the fighting and a systematic campaign against ethnic Georgian civilians. “The satellite images showed hundreds of houses burning, houses with missing roofs,” he said in a telephone interview. “This is damage from deliberate torching, quite different from war damage.”
The commercial satellite images were analyzed by a Geneva-based United Nations agency, Unosat. Human Rights Watch, which has also looked at the images, said that destruction of five ethnic Georgian villages near the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali “was caused by intentional burning and not armed conflict.”
Mr. Akhavan said that the conflict had already displaced some 160,000 ethnic Georgians.
“The pattern is continuing, but it is done more quietly without the burning and killing but through pressuring people,” he said, citing reports that residents near Akhalgori, a Georgian town south of South Ossetia, were being told they could only stay “if they have a Russian passport.”
Georgia filed an earlier case against Russia before the same court, on Aug. 12, shortly after the conflict began, charging Moscow with racial discrimination.
EU asks Russia to honour Georgia withdrawal
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10531177
Tuesday September 9, 2008
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the European Union presidency, began the difficult mission yesterday of trying to persuade Russia to honour its pledge to withdraw troops from Georgia.
During the talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the EU also was pushing for a quick deployment of several hundred EU monitors to Georgia. But just after Sarkozy arrived here Monday morning, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Moscow is against an independent European Union monitoring mission in Georgia.
Nearly a month after a truce negotiated by Sarkozy ended a five-day war between Russia and Georgia, Russian troops remain entrenched deep inside Georgian territory. Georgia and the West have accused Russia of failing to honour its pledge to withdraw its troops to positions held before the fighting broke out Aug. 7.
But Russia says those troops are peacekeepers and that they are allowed under the accord to help maintain security around Georgia's breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Moscow has recognised the two regions as independent states.
Sarkozy has been criticized for giving the Russians too much room for interpretation in the peace deal signed Aug. 12, and his diplomatic blitz to Moscow and Tbilisi on Monday may be his last chance to save it - as well as his own credibility as a peacemaker.
Sarkozy is leading an EU delegation that includes European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
In pushing for a quick deployment of several hundred EU monitors to Georgia, EU officials said they would remove any justification for the continued presence of Russian troops outside the two provinces. But their mandate is yet to be negotiated.
Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said just before the EU delegation sat down for talks with Medvedev that Moscow was against an autonomous EU monitoring mission in Georgia.
"We believe it will lead to an unnecessary fragmentation of international monitoring efforts already being conducted today by the UN and the OSCE," Nesterenko said at a briefing.
Nesterenko said Russia has welcomed the recent decision to increase the Organization for Security and Cooperation's number of monitors in Georgia. His statement appeared to reflect Russia's hope of influencing the UN and the OSCE teams by using Moscow's membership in both organizations.
In his 16 months in office, Sarkozy's doggedness has paid off in the international arena.
He helped win the release of six Bulgarian medics held in Libya; he has boosted France's diplomatic and military role in Afghanistan; and he has restored France's ties with Syria, among other things.
But he faces a tough job in persuading Medvedev to back down. Moscow has argued that the peace deal allows its soldiers to maintain patrols in a so-called security zone of up to 4 miles (7 kilometers) that it carved out on Georgian territory, and Russian officials have indicated they have no intention of pulling the "peacekeepers" out.
At a Russian checkpoint in Karaleti outside South Ossetia, Tamazi Kaidarashvili, an ethnic Georgian who is one of only a few dozen people remaining in his village north of the checkpoint, said he hoped the EU would persuade Russia to withdraw forces.
"As long as the Russian boot is in the Caucasus, there will never be peace," he said.
Kaidarashvili had crossed through the checkpoint to visit his brother, who lost an arm and a leg when he stepped on a mine a week ago and is in a hospital in Gori.
He said Russian soldiers had been stopping at houses in the village to demand food and drink and asking "why are you with the Americans and against us."
Despite the presence of Russian troops on Georgian soil, Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili said the West would help his country regain control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
"Our territorial integrity will be restored. I am more convinced of this than ever," Saakashvili said in a televised appearance Sunday. "This will not be an easy process, but now this is a process between an irate Russia and the rest of the world."
Russian tanks and troops entered South Ossetia after Georgian forces began an offensive to gain control of the pro-Russian territory, which has had de-facto independence for more than 15 years. The Russians quickly repelled the soldiers and drove further into Georgia.
- AP
Tuesday September 9, 2008
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the European Union presidency, began the difficult mission yesterday of trying to persuade Russia to honour its pledge to withdraw troops from Georgia.
During the talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the EU also was pushing for a quick deployment of several hundred EU monitors to Georgia. But just after Sarkozy arrived here Monday morning, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Moscow is against an independent European Union monitoring mission in Georgia.
Nearly a month after a truce negotiated by Sarkozy ended a five-day war between Russia and Georgia, Russian troops remain entrenched deep inside Georgian territory. Georgia and the West have accused Russia of failing to honour its pledge to withdraw its troops to positions held before the fighting broke out Aug. 7.
But Russia says those troops are peacekeepers and that they are allowed under the accord to help maintain security around Georgia's breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Moscow has recognised the two regions as independent states.
Sarkozy has been criticized for giving the Russians too much room for interpretation in the peace deal signed Aug. 12, and his diplomatic blitz to Moscow and Tbilisi on Monday may be his last chance to save it - as well as his own credibility as a peacemaker.
Sarkozy is leading an EU delegation that includes European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
In pushing for a quick deployment of several hundred EU monitors to Georgia, EU officials said they would remove any justification for the continued presence of Russian troops outside the two provinces. But their mandate is yet to be negotiated.
Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said just before the EU delegation sat down for talks with Medvedev that Moscow was against an autonomous EU monitoring mission in Georgia.
"We believe it will lead to an unnecessary fragmentation of international monitoring efforts already being conducted today by the UN and the OSCE," Nesterenko said at a briefing.
Nesterenko said Russia has welcomed the recent decision to increase the Organization for Security and Cooperation's number of monitors in Georgia. His statement appeared to reflect Russia's hope of influencing the UN and the OSCE teams by using Moscow's membership in both organizations.
In his 16 months in office, Sarkozy's doggedness has paid off in the international arena.
He helped win the release of six Bulgarian medics held in Libya; he has boosted France's diplomatic and military role in Afghanistan; and he has restored France's ties with Syria, among other things.
But he faces a tough job in persuading Medvedev to back down. Moscow has argued that the peace deal allows its soldiers to maintain patrols in a so-called security zone of up to 4 miles (7 kilometers) that it carved out on Georgian territory, and Russian officials have indicated they have no intention of pulling the "peacekeepers" out.
At a Russian checkpoint in Karaleti outside South Ossetia, Tamazi Kaidarashvili, an ethnic Georgian who is one of only a few dozen people remaining in his village north of the checkpoint, said he hoped the EU would persuade Russia to withdraw forces.
"As long as the Russian boot is in the Caucasus, there will never be peace," he said.
Kaidarashvili had crossed through the checkpoint to visit his brother, who lost an arm and a leg when he stepped on a mine a week ago and is in a hospital in Gori.
He said Russian soldiers had been stopping at houses in the village to demand food and drink and asking "why are you with the Americans and against us."
Despite the presence of Russian troops on Georgian soil, Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili said the West would help his country regain control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
"Our territorial integrity will be restored. I am more convinced of this than ever," Saakashvili said in a televised appearance Sunday. "This will not be an easy process, but now this is a process between an irate Russia and the rest of the world."
Russian tanks and troops entered South Ossetia after Georgian forces began an offensive to gain control of the pro-Russian territory, which has had de-facto independence for more than 15 years. The Russians quickly repelled the soldiers and drove further into Georgia.
- AP
Monday, September 8, 2008
Georgia seeks protection from UN court
By Marlise Simons
Published: September 8, 2008
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/08/europe/court.php
PARIS: Georgia on Monday sought the protection of the International Court of Justice for ethnic Georgians living in the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, arguing that they are still being driven from their villages by a "systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing" organized by Russia.
Georgia's immediate aim is for the court, based in The Hague, to issue an injunction ordering Russia to stop "terrorizing" ethnic Georgians and to allow refugees to return to their homes in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In an earlier lawsuit, filed in August, Georgia charged Russia with racial discrimination, an issue which the court may address later.
The 15 judges of the highest United Nations court, which deals with conflicts between countries, must first decide if it has jurisdiction over the conflict. If so, lawyers for Georgia said they hoped to obtain the injunction against Russia within two weeks, which would be very fast for this court.
Opening three days of hearings on Monday, Georgia's first deputy minister of justice, Tina Bujaliani, said her country was turning to the court "at a time of great distress in its history, a time when hundreds of thousands of its nationals are persecuted and displaced from their homes only because they are Georgians."
Russia challenged the court's jurisdiction to hear the case, and asked it to dismiss the Georgian application. Roman Kolodkin, for Russia, told judges Georgia had provoked the current crisis last month when it launched an attack to recover control over South Ossetia. He said that Russia had no choice but to become involved to prevent further deaths.
Published: September 8, 2008
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/08/europe/court.php
PARIS: Georgia on Monday sought the protection of the International Court of Justice for ethnic Georgians living in the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, arguing that they are still being driven from their villages by a "systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing" organized by Russia.
Georgia's immediate aim is for the court, based in The Hague, to issue an injunction ordering Russia to stop "terrorizing" ethnic Georgians and to allow refugees to return to their homes in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In an earlier lawsuit, filed in August, Georgia charged Russia with racial discrimination, an issue which the court may address later.
The 15 judges of the highest United Nations court, which deals with conflicts between countries, must first decide if it has jurisdiction over the conflict. If so, lawyers for Georgia said they hoped to obtain the injunction against Russia within two weeks, which would be very fast for this court.
Opening three days of hearings on Monday, Georgia's first deputy minister of justice, Tina Bujaliani, said her country was turning to the court "at a time of great distress in its history, a time when hundreds of thousands of its nationals are persecuted and displaced from their homes only because they are Georgians."
Russia challenged the court's jurisdiction to hear the case, and asked it to dismiss the Georgian application. Roman Kolodkin, for Russia, told judges Georgia had provoked the current crisis last month when it launched an attack to recover control over South Ossetia. He said that Russia had no choice but to become involved to prevent further deaths.
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