Russia due to start pullout of combat troops from Georgia

18/08/2008| IslamWeb

The world awaited the promised start of a Russian pullout of combat troops from Georgia on Monday, as a plan to retain Russian "peacekeepers" in the embattled Caucasus republic sparked new tension.

Western allies of President Mikheil Saakashvili further upped the pressure on Moscow to quit Georgia as Russian troops dug in less than half an hour's drive from the capital Tbilisi.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel assured Saakashvili in Tbilisi that NATO remained ready to give membership to the ex-Soviet republic, as promised at a NATO summit in April, despite the conflict with Russia.

Separately, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on US television that Russia's reputation was in "tatters".

With a ceasefire holding, President Dmitry Medvedev assured his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy on Sunday that Russian regular forces "from tomorrow... will begin withdrawing," the Kremlin said.

However, new tensions gathered over Russia's longer-term military plans in the small but strategically located ex-Soviet republic.

Russia plans to deploy a peacekeeping force of unspecified size that Georgian officials worry could turn into an open-ended occupation.

US officials say Russia has deployed SS-21 tactical missile launchers to the breakaway South Ossetia region, putting the Georgian capital within their striking range, The New York Times reported.

"There is no such notion any more in Georgia as Russian peacekeepers. There can be no Russian peacekeepers -- these are just Russian forces," Saakashvili said at a press conference with Merkel.

Merkel voiced strong support for Georgia's bid to join the NATO military alliance, saying: "Georgia will become a member of NATO if it wants to -- and it does want to."

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will meet Monday to discuss a plan to send 100 extra observers to Georgia, according to the body's Finnish chairman Alexander Stubb.

Rice meanwhile piled the pressure onto Russia, telling NBC television: "Russia's reputation as a potential partner in international institutions, diplomatic, political, security, economic, is frankly, in tatters."

Sarkozy phoned Moscow on Sunday and, in an article for French newspaper Le Figaro on Monday, called for the withdrawal "without delay" of Russian troops from Georgia, adding: "This point is not negotiable."

Moscow's NATO envoy, Dmitry Rogozin, slammed NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer's accusation that Russia had used disproportionate force in Georgia as "utterly intolerable" and said Russia would be reviewing its own relations with the NATO bloc.

It was NATO which "has itself used not just disportionate force but force against civilian targets and the civilian population, especially in its conflict with Yugoslavia in 1999," Rogozin told the Russian government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

The ceasefire deal is meant to conclude a five-day conflict in which Russian forces drove off a Georgian assault overnight August 7 against Moscow-backed separatists in South Ossetia.

In South Ossetia itself, the president of the separatist region, Eduard Kokoity, late Sunday dismissed his government and proclaimed a state of emergency, Russia's Vesti-24 television reported.

He accused his government of being slow in distributing humanitarian aid to South Ossetians, telling the channel that a public servant "must work for his people and not to make profit for himself."

In Gori, a Russian-occupied town beyond South Ossetia, the commanding general said a switch from regular troops had already begun.

"The Russian troops are starting to pull out and Russian peacekeepers are coming in," General Vyacheslav Borisov told AFP.

Russian forces continued to man positions along the road from Tbilisi to Gori, including at a checkpoint in Igoeti, only 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the capital.

An AFP reporter saw a long column of Russian vehicles, including about 25 tanks and 25 armoured personnel carriers, parked outside Gori. A Russian soldier told AFP the forces were peacekeepers and would be staying.

According to Borisov, Russia also lifted a blockade of the town enforced since the fighting last week.

However, a leading UN official in Georgia said large-scale aid deliveries were still being held up.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said Sunday the number of people displaced had reached 158,600, and there were scenes of desperation in Gori as a trickle of supplies began arriving.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said Ossetian irregulars were attacking ethnic-Georgians in Russian-controlled areas and called for Russia to take immediate steps to end the violence.

A rift over the status of South Ossetia and another rebel region, Abkhazia, stymied efforts by the UN Security Council on Sunday to agree a resolution endorsing the French-brokered truce, diplomats said.

 

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Russian troops

AFP