Russia recognise independence of breakaways reigions South Ossetia and Abkhazia

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Medvedev backs independence for Abkhazia and South Ossetia
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has declared that Russia will recognise the independence of Georgia’s breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. He made the announcement in Sochi following a unanimous vote for the republics’ independence by both houses of the Russian Parliament in Moscow on Monday.
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News
Bulent Kilic August 25, 2008, 15:46
South Ossetia and Abkhazia to follow in Kosovo's footsteps?
After Kosovo declared independence in February this year, Russia warned that other breakaway regions would follow suit. It now seems that the Pandora's box has been opened. The first regions to take the opportunity are Georgia's breakaway republics. The leaders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia immediately looked towards Moscow to demand the prize Kosovo had been granted by other countries.
Georgia had unsuccessfully attempted to bring the two regions under its control in by force in the early 1990s. A frozen conflict ensued, with Russian peacekeepers stationed in both regions.
Throughout this period the self-proclaimed republics held several referendums calling for full independence. The overwhelming majority voted to become separate sovereign states, but their will was not put into action. Now they hope to follow in Kosovo's footsteps.
Georgia doesn't want to let the two regions go for historical and territorial reasons. Georgia's president has offered the regions what he calls "broad autonomy", but after the recent invasion, Ossetians and Abkhazians may have little reason to trust the offer. The return of the breakaway regions has been one of Saakashvili's main aims since he came to power in 2003.
NATO membership is another ambition of the Georgian president, but unsettled territorial conflicts are a major obstacle.
Now Georgia's territorial integrity is being backed by countries which supported Kosovo's separation from Serbia. The EU envoy to the south
Caucasus, Peter Semneby, says: “I will not overemphasise and pay too much attention to parallels. Every conflict has its specific character”. However, the three regions share a common historical experience - a will to set up a state on their own and wars of independence with their
central governments.
Neither Abkhazia nor South Ossetia will be part of Georgian state
25.08.2008 Source: AP
Russian lawmakers voted unanimously Monday to ask the president to recognize the independence of two unrecognized republics within Georgian borders, a move likely to anger the United States, the European Union and other Georgian allies.
The twin votes by the upper and lower houses of the Russian parliament came after intense fighting between Russia and Georgia over the two provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The votes were not legally binding and it was up to President Dmitry Medvedev to make the final call on diplomatic recognition. Still, experts say the blessing by lawmakers gives the Kremlin an extra bargaining chip in its dealings with the West as it tries to reassert influence in the
former Soviet republics and resist moves by Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO.
"Today we must fulfill what is I think our historic mission - to defend small countries from aggressors," Federation Council member Boris Spiegel told Associated Press Television before the vote.
Currently, neither Russia nor any other member of the United Nations recognizes the two provinces' independence claims. Both won de-facto independence in the 1990s after wars with the Georgia, and have survived ever since with Russia's financial, political and military support.
"Neither Abkhazia ... nor South Ossetia will be part of the Georgian state," Abkhazian leader Sergei Bagapsh told lawmakers Monday.
After Georgia tried to retake South Ossetia by force Aug. 7, Russian troops overwhelmed the Georgians, and for nearly two weeks occupied positions deep within Georgia. Most of those forces withdrew Friday, although some Russia troops continue to operate near the Black Sea
port of Poti and in Georgia outside the boundaries of the breakaway regions.
The fighting has brought relations between Russia and the West to a post-Cold War low, as Western nations accuse Russia of falling short of its commitment to withdraw forces from its smaller neighbor.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is convening a special meeting of European Union leaders Sept. 1 to determine the next steps the 27-member bloc will take in terms of aid to Georgia and future relations with Russia. France holds the EU's rotating presidency.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, however, said Monday the EU was not considering any sanctions against Russia.
On Sunday, a U.S. Navy destroyer loaded with humanitarian aid reached Georgia's Black Sea port of Batumi, bringing baby food, milk, bottled water and a message of support for an embattled ally.
"The population of Georgia will feel more safe from today from the Russian aggression," Georgian Defense Minister David Kezerashvili told
The Associated Press on the aft missile deck of the USS McFaul after greeting U.S. Navy officers on shore. "They will feel safe not because the destroyer is here but because they will feel they are not alone facing the Russian aggression," he added.
The guided missile cruiser USS McFaul, carrying about 55 tons of humanitarian aid, is the first of three American ships scheduled to arrive this week.
A U.S. official said the American ship anchored in Batumi, Georgia's main oil port on the Black Sea, because of concerns about Russian damage to the Georgian port of Poti.
In central Georgia, a few miles west of the city of Gori, a fire tore through an oil train Sunday after an explosion, sending plumes of black smoke into the air. The cause was not clear, but Georgian officials have accused Russian troops of targeting their oil facilities and transport
links.
Georgia straddles a key westward route for oil from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and other Caspian Sea nations, giving it added strategic importance as the United States and the European Union seek to decrease Russia's dominance of oil and gas exports from the former Soviet
Union.
Bush’s Unrealistic Response to Georgia Conflict
26.08.2008 Source: Pravda.
By Patrick Basham
“The New American Realism” is the title of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s recent article in Foreign Affairs, the influential policy journal. But there is little that is realistic about the American response to the conflict in the Caucasus.
Both President Bush and Republican presidential candidate John McCain are unambiguous in their condemnation of Russia’s military aggression and in their support of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. In domestic political terms, the crisis played into McCain’s hands
because he does “tough” so well. Unfortunately, “tough” is not the best move in this particular diplomatic chess match because it ignores two realities.
First and foremost, the U.S. is in neither a political nor a logistical position to expend blood and treasure in Russia’s backyard. Tuesday’s emergency meeting of NATO ministers begs the question, what can NATO actually do about the Georgia conflict? Beyond bold rhetoric and
diplomatic gesturing that won’t bother Moscow, there is really very little than NATO can do.
If we could do something, there is an obvious, tangible downside to Western action against Russia. If relations between Russia and the West are disrupted, the West would suffer, for example, on the security side of the equation. Russian participation is integral to a number of security measures, including counterterrorism policy and assistance in dealing with the Iranian regime.
Second, any American action, be it diplomatic or military, reeks of hypocrisy. The U.S. repeatedly rallied to the cause of self-determination in circumstances where separatism and independence constituted a political blow to Moscow. In stark contrast, the U.S. clearly does not
bestow upon South Ossetians and Abkhazians the same right to self-determination as it does Kosovars and Chechens.
A cynic might suggest that the U.S. reaction reflects no more than a longstanding (and questionable) desire for Georgian membership in NATO, a desire reinforced by the Georgian military’s noteworthy service in Iraq. At least that reasoning possesses the advantage of
consistency.
The Georgian government’s ill conceived attempt to restore control over South Ossetia provided Russia with a ready-made excuse both to defend its natural supporters in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and to stress the larger point that Russia is the preeminent power in this region.
Russia 's unwillingness to back off is unquestionably distasteful and, from a strategic vantage point, arguably unnecessary. However, it is entirely predictable given Moscow's worldview.
The American reaction to Russia’s intervention in Georgia was intended to persuade Russia to step away from the conflict. The sad irony is that US ignorance of the nature of its Russian adversary, combined with a crude rhetorical delivery, contributed to Moscow's decision to take
further steps in the direction of Tbilisi.
At this point, could any U.S. action really prove productive—either for mitigating the violence in Georgia or for repairing relations with Russia?
First, the Bush Administration could swallow hard and recognize, at least implicitly, the inherent inconsistency in its position regarding South
Ossetia and Abkhazia’s respective futures. That, of course, is not altogether likely.
Second, Dr. Rice could then offer the Russians some of what they really want: a commitment to pursue an international agreement on the preconditions for self-determination that would bind both the U.S. and Russia to a common metric for resolving these kinds of disputes.
The Russians may find such an offer irresistible on public relations grounds alone. Consequently, such an apparently constructive American offer may actually incentivize Russia to pull her troops back within the borders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, at least temporarily.
However, the potential for an acceptable diplomatic conclusion to events in Georgia will diminish exponentially if, out of this crisis, the Bush administration seeks a larger diplomatic victory over Russia. A deeply unsatisfactory draw is the best anyone in the West can realistically hope
for.
Russia is clearly a very irritating—but, in truth, a very manageable—foreign policy challenge. In her article, Dr. Rice insightfully writes, “It is useful to remember that Russia is not the Soviet Union. It is neither a permanent enemy nor a strategic threat.”
If President Bush had read Dr. Rice’s article en route to the Olympics, perhaps his ill-advised response to the crisis in Georgia may have been avoided. Such restraint in U.S. foreign policymaking would be both new and realistic.
Patrick Basham is director of the Washington-based Democracy Institute

Russian lawmakers recognize Georgia separatists

Russian lawmakers recognize Georgia separatists

By MANSUR MIROVALEV, Associated Press Writer18 minutes ago
Russia's parliament voted unanimously Monday to urge the president to recognize the independence of Georgia's two breakaway regions, a move likely to stoke further tensions between Moscow and the small Caucasus nation's Western allies.
The votes by both chambers of Russia's parliament, which were not legally binding, come as the White House announced Vice President Dick Cheney would travel to three former Soviet republics next week — Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan.
"Russia's historic role of the guarantor of piece in the Caucasus has increased," said Boris Gryzlov, speaker of the lower chamber. "The Caucasus has always been and will remain the zone of Russia's strategic interests."
The continued presence of Russian troops in Georgia after a lightning war over the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia has sunk relations between Russia and the West to a post-Cold War low. Western nations have accused Russia of reneging on its commitment to withdraw forces from U.S.-allied Georgia.
The vice president's office described Cheney's trip, which begins Sept. 2 and also includes a stop in Italy, where the U.S. has a major base, only in the broadest terms, saying President Bush wants his No. 2 to consult with key partners on matters of mutual interest.
Experts say the Russian parliament's blessing of the Georgian separatists gives the Kremlin extra leverage as Russia tries to reassert its influence in the former Soviet republics and resist moves by Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO.
But it was up to President Dmitry Medvedev to make the final call on establishing full diplomatic relations with South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Currently, neither Russia nor any other member of the United Nations recognizes the two provinces' independence claims. Both won de-facto independence in the 1990s after wars with Georgia, and have survived since with Russia's financial, political and military support.
"Neither Abkhazia ... nor South Ossetia will be part of the Georgian state," Abkhazian leader Sergei Bagapsh told the upper chamber of Russia's parliament Monday.
Despite their desire for independence, one or both regions could eventually be absorbed into Russia.
After Georgia tried to reassert control of South Ossetia by force Aug. 7, Russian troops overwhelmed the Georgians, and for nearly two weeks occupied positions deep within Georgia.
Most of those forces withdrew Friday, although some Russian troops continue to operate near the Black Sea port of Poti and just outside the boundaries of the breakaway regions.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called a special meeting of European Union leaders Sept. 1 to determine what steps the EU will take in terms of aid to Georgia and future relations with Russia. France holds the 27-member bloc's rotating presidency.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, however, said Monday the EU was not considering any sanctions against Moscow.
Russia's critics say the conflict in Georgia heralds a new, worrying era in which an increasingly assertive Kremlin has shown itself ready to resort to military force outside its borders.
On Sunday, a U.S. Navy destroyer loaded with humanitarian aid reached Georgia's Black Sea port of Batumi, bringing baby food, milk, bottled water and a message of support for an embattled ally.
The guided missile cruiser, carrying about 55 tons of humanitarian aid, was the first of three American ships scheduled to arrive this week.
The deputy chief of Russia's general staff suggested Monday the arrival of U.S. and other NATO warships in the Black Sea would increase tensions. Russia shares the sea with NATO members Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria as well as Georgia and Ukraine.
The steps taken by the United States "add another degree to the tension in the region," Anatoly Nogovitsyn said Monday in televised remarks.
A U.S. official said the American ship anchored in Batumi, Georgia's main oil port on the Black Sea, because of concerns about damage to the Georgian port of Poti. Russian troops still hold positions near Poti, and Georgians say the Russians inflicted extensive damage on port facilities there.
In central Georgia, a few miles west of the city of Gori, a fire tore through an oil train after an explosion Sunday, sending plumes of black smoke into the air. The cause was not clear, but Georgians have accused Russian troops of targeting oil facilities and transport links.
Georgia straddles a key westward route for oil from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and other Caspian Sea nations — as the United States and the European Union seek to decrease Russia's dominance of oil and gas exports from the former Soviet Union.
Associated Press Writers Jim Heintz in Tbilisi, Georgia and Maria Danilova in Moscow contributed to this report.

Russia may hit USA very hard below the belt

25.08.2008 Source: Pravda.

US leading experts analyzed punishing opportunities of both Russia and the West after the recent armed conflict in Georgia. Specialists came to conclusion that the list of potential Western sanctions pales in comparison with what Moscow could do in response. However, the US administration hopes that Russia will not resort to radical measures not to harm its own financial and security interests.
The US administration has issued yet another warning to Moscow recently claiming that Russia’s actions in Georgia would question the future of its WTO bid, as well as Russia’s position in the Group of Eight.
The list of Washington’s threats also includes the blocking of Russia’s membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the boycott of Russia’s hosting of Winter Olympics in 2014 and a freeze of US-Russian strategic dialogue.
US experts warn that the list of Moscow’s potential sanctions is a lot longer. Angela Stent, the director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies, Georgetown University, said that Moscow may respond at the UN Security Council, where it can put obstacles on the way of US intentions to punish Iran for its nuclear ambition. All anti-terrorist programs, the struggle against drug mafia, Syria, Venezuela and Hamas can be added on the list too. There are many questions, on which Russians may stop their cooperation with the USA, with the cooperation in the energy industry on top of that list, the expert believes.
The International Herald Tribune wrote with reference to US outstanding analysts that Washington needed a lot more from Moscow than vice versa. The US needs to ensure the security of Soviet nuclear weapons, to obtain Russia’s help in the endeavor to make Iran and North Korea shut down their nuclear programs.
The sale of Russia’s arms is another problem. The governments of Western countries and Israel are concerned about reports saying that Russia started the shipments of first components of its S-300 missile system to Iran. The latter may subsequently use the powerful systems to down US and Israeli aircraft.
Russia may complicate USA’s and NATO’s supply of the coalition in Afghanistan In April, Moscow gave France and Germany a right to transit non-combatant cargoes via Russia. Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, said that the West should not bite the hand that feeds 50,000 servicemen in Afghanistan. Moscow can offer show pressure of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, which the USA would like to use for their operations in Afghanistan.
In addition, Russia is capable of blocking any sanctions at the UN Security Council. Moscow can also pull out from a number of disarmament treaties, including the one signed with the USA about the liquidation of short and smaller range missiles after the expiry of START-1 Treaty in 2009.
Flynt Leverett, a former National Security Council senior director and CIA senior analyst, said that Moscow was becoming a very important buyer of US Treasury bonds and US government agency issues. The specialist believes that those officials, who urge Washington to put forward various ultimatums to Russia, would hardly prefer Moscow disposing of its dollar assets. Leverett wrote for The National Interest that Moscow was sounding out opportunities of selling Russian crude for roubles, which would obviously affect long-term dollar positions.
Washington hopes that Russia will not go too far. For example, Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons and the abrupt devaluation of Russian dollar assets would be highly undesirable for Russia as well. However, Moscow’s further actions will depend on new sanctions of the West that will have to think twice before reacting to possible recognition of South Ossetia’s and Abkhazia’s independence by Russia.
© 1999-2006. «PRAVDA.Ru». When reproducing our materials in whole or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of view of PRAVDA.Ru's editors.

Russia’s reversal: Where next for humanitarian intervention?

By Quentin Peel
Published: August 22 2008 19:49 Last updated: August 22 2008 19:49
On March 24 1999, Sergei Lavrov, then Russia’s long-serving ambassador to the United Nations, issued a forceful defence of national sovereignty. It fell to him to present his government’s outrage at the Nato air strikes that had just been launched against Serbian forces attacking ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
In a scathing performance before the UN Security Council, Mr Lavrov condemned the operation as an offence against international law and demanded that it cease forthwith. “The members of Nato are not entitled to decide the fate of other sovereign and independent states,” he declared. “Attempts to justify the Nato strikes with arguments about preventing a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo are completely untenable.” He went on to accuse the western allies of blackmail.
Today, as foreign minister in Moscow, Mr Lavrov is using arguments similar to those of Nato in Kosovo, justifying Russia’s attack on neighbouring Georgia as necessary to protect Russian citizens in South Ossetia. He and Dmitry Medvedev, his president, have accused Georgia of a massive onslaught on civilians amounting to “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing”. Again echoing Nato in Kosovo, Russia has declared its determination to defend the rights of South Ossetians, and the Abkhaz in Georgia’s other secessionist region, to decide their own future.
On the surface, it looks like an extraordinary conversion on the part of a Russian ruling establishment that has long regarded “humanitarian intervention” as a rhetorical fig leaf for American-led military adventurism and has been bitterly opposed to any suggestion of “self-determination” for secessionist minorities in a larger state. Two bitter wars have been fought by the Russian army in Chechnya since the collapse of the Soviet Union to deny just such an outcome.
Others see it as a deliberate exercise to reassert effective Russian control over former Soviet territory, block Nato membership for a country in its “backyard”, and simultaneously expose the hypocrisy of US foreign policy in Kosovo and subsequently in Iraq.
Whatever the justification, the Russian action threatens to disrupt its entire relationship with the US, the European Union and Nato. It may also call into question the fragile international consensus on clear rules for humanitarian intervention, agreed only three years ago by the UN general assembly.
Many Russian commentators argue that the language of humanitarian intervention was abused – particularly by Tony Blair, when UK prime minister – not just in Kosovo but also as belated justification for the war in Iraq. Now, by using the same arguments in Georgia, Russia has left the concept sorely and perhaps deliberately damaged.
“I think it has been profoundly damaged, even before this, because of Iraq and Afghanistan,” says Mary Kaldor, professor of global governance at the London School of Economics. “The tragedy is that there is a case for limited humanitarian intervention, but this middle position is very difficult to hold on to. This conflict will make it even harder.”
The idea of codifying rules for humanitarian intervention was first raised by Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general, in a lecture to the UK-based Ditchley Foundation in 1998. “Our job is to intervene: to prevent conflict where we can, to put a stop to it when it has broken out or – when neither of those things is possible – at least to contain it and prevent it from spreading,” he said.
Mr Blair took up the idea with enthusiasm while the Kosovo conflict was still under way. “This is a just war, based not on any territorial ambitions but on values. We cannot let the evil of ethnic cleansing stand,” he told the Chicago Economic Club in April, 1999, calling such intervention a new “doctrine of the international community”.
It took another six years for Mr Annan to win support, on the basis of recommendations by his high-level panel on UN reform, for the so-called Responsibility to Protect (R2P in diplomatic jargon) initiative. It was seen as the most important reform agreed – unanimously – by all the countries that attended the UN general assembly in 2005. It made up for a failure to agree any changes in the make-up of the UN Security Council itself.
Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister and president of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, was one of the architects of the R2P concept. He rejects the idea that the Russian intervention in Georgia qualifies under that heading.
“Even though it has been characterised in R2P terms, this is not really about protection of civilians but protection of [Russian] nationals,” he says. “That has been the basis for all sorts of interventions in the past that were not humanitarian.
“This was not a situation with a risk of mass atrocity crimes. It is not one that meets the precautionary criteria [for R2P] that we defined.”
Those criteria include a just cause – imminent danger of ethnic cleansing or a large-scale loss of life, for example. All peaceful alternatives to military intervention must have been exhausted and use of force must be proportional. Any such intervention also requires legal authority, ideally from the UN Security Council. “You have got to be really careful how you apply this,” says Mr Evans. “You cannot play ducks and drakes with the criteria.”
In the case of South Ossetia, he argues, the seriousness of the situation was “not so obvious as to justify prima facie military force”, peaceful alternatives had not been exhausted and the response was not proportional.
Dmitry Kosyrev, a political commentator with the semi-official Russian news agency, RIA-Novosti, retorts that “sending armed forces into the territory of a sovereign state without the UN’s authorisation, so called ‘humanitarian intervention’ ”, is an American invention.
. . .Mr Blair’s belated use of humanitarian arguments to justify the war in Iraq also undermined the cause. “There would have been a strong case for humanitarian intervention in Iraq if it had happened in 1988, when the Kurds were being gassed,” says Edward Mortimer, senior vice-president of the Salzburg Global Seminar and former speech-writer to Mr Annan. “Having not intervened then, to say we were involved in a humanitarian intervention 15 years later” was less credible.
David Malone, president of Canada’s International Development Research Center and an author on past interventions, says there is a constant confusion “between the notion of humanitarian intervention as a military operation, to impose assistance for victims of conflict, and the peaceful provision of assistance. Thoughtful people in favour of the latter are very cautious about the former.”
When asked to cite a successful example of humanitarian intervention, he can name only tiny Sierra Leone in west Africa, where UN peacekeepers, with backing from British troops, managed to bring stability over a long period. In Darfur, where the international community has been strongly criticised for its failure to intervene more forcefully, “there has never been any serious discussion about western military intervention. The scale of the military challenge is overwhelming.”
Indeed, failed interventions have also proved devastating. In Somalia in 1992-93, for example, US troops suffered grievous casualties and withdrew – a big factor in the subsequent refusal of Washington and many others to intervene to stop the genocide in Rwanda.
On the other hand, there has been one recent intervention that fits the R2P criteria and has so far been a notable success: stopping the threat of ethnic warfare in Kenya after that country’s disputed election last year. “That was a real R2P situation where we did not need military intervention, because there was peaceful negotiation in time,” says Mr Evans.
Mr Annan brokered a power-sharing agreement in Kenya between Mwai Kibaki, the president, and Raila Odinga, now prime minister. “When we talk of intervention, people think of the military. But under R2P, force is a last resort. I think we have seen a successful example of its application [in Kenya],” he told The New York Times.
That is a hopeful example. But Martti Ahtisaari, former Finnish president and now head of the Crisis Management Group, an organisation specialising in conflict resolution, says there is a more profound problem. “Why can’t we get more countries to support European positions?” he asks. “Because we have allowed too many frozen conflicts to remain just that: frozen.
“Why do we let the Sri Lankans fight, and we don’t do a damn thing? I don’t say we should intervene militarily, but we should do something. Darfur is a failure, I agree, but far more serious are the conflicts that have been there for ages, such as Kashmir.
“Above all, our credibility as the west is very much geared to starting to solve finally the Middle East conflict. Everyone knows that is central.”
The Financial Times Limited 250808

UN split on Ossetia resolutions

UN split on Ossetia resolutions

The UN Security Council is deadlocked over the situation in Georgia with the US and Russia rejecting rival resolutions on the crisis.
Washington says it is prepared to veto a Russian resolution seeking to implement a six-point ceasefire plan.
Russia has reiterated its opposition to a rival French text, reaffirming Georgia's territorial integrity.
Most Russian soldiers are due to leave Georgia shortly but 500 will stay in a "buffer zone" around South Ossetia.
Russia has set itself a deadline of Friday night to pull back all its combat troops .
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has told the BBC the Russians are still consolidating their hold on parts of his country, and he again accused them of trying to paralyse the Georgian economy.
Russia fought a four-day war with Georgia after it tried to retake the breakaway province of South Ossetia by force on 7 August.
Moscow has had peacekeeping troops in the province, which it borders, since it broke away in the early 1990s.
Rival resolutions
There is no sign of agreement over the rival resolutions, one backed by Russia and the other by Western European countries and the US, the BBC's Laura Trevelyan reports from New York.
Two days ago, France circulated a draft resolution, calling for an immediate Russian withdrawal from Georgia and reaffirming Georgia's territorial integrity.
Russia rejected this because it said Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia wanted independence.
Moscow circulated its own draft calling on the Security Council to endorse the six-point peace plan brokered by France and agreed by Moscow and Tbilisi.
"Our draft resolution is a reconfirmation of the six-point agreement, and there's no territorial integrity in the six principles," said Russia's UN Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin.
Now Russia's ambassador says his resolution is going into its final form, so it can be voted on.
But the US and its allies insist Russia is not respecting the ceasefire plan because it is not withdrawing from Georgia quickly enough.
The US Deputy Ambassador to the UN, Alejandro Wolff, said under the circumstances he thought America would be prepared to oppose Russia's resolution.
'Dictating the pace'
Russia's land forces commander, Gen Vladimir Boldyrev, has said that all Russian combat troops will move back from Georgia proper to South Ossetia by the weekend.
Most of the soldiers sent to the region as reinforcements will return from South Ossetia to Russia within 10 days, he added.
However, Moscow will retain 500 peacekeepers in a security zone stretching 7km (four miles) beyond the border of South Ossetia into Georgia proper - a move Tbilisi says is unacceptable.
Despite international condemnation, Russia is still dictating the slow pace of this withdrawal, the BBC's Sarah Rainsford reports from Moscow.
Tbilisi says any Russian soldier on its soil is an occupier and Nato has condemned the Russian approach.
In response, the Russian defence ministry said on Thursday it was halting all military cooperation whilst it re-considered its relationship with the alliance.
Story from BBC NEWS:

Russia-Georgia WAR- 070808

மூன்றாம் உலகப் போரை நோக்கிய திசை வழியில் மற்றொரு போர்முனை திறப்பு
ரசியா- ஜோர்யியா போர்முனை:

* ரசிய சமூக ஏகாதிபத்தியத்தின் வீழ்ச்சிக்குப் பின்னால் உருவாகிய ஒற்றைத்துருவ உலக ஒழுங்கமைப்புக்கு அமெரிக்கா தலைமை தாங்குகிறது.
* முதலாளித்துவத்தின்- ஏகாதிபத்தியத்தின் ஏற்றத்தாழ்வான வளர்ச்சி விதி காரணமாக பொருளாதார ரீதியாக அமெரிக்கா ஐரோப்பிய யூனியனுக்கு பின் தங்கிவிட்டது
* இதனால் மூன்றாவது உலகப் பொது ஏகாதிபத்திய பொருளாதார நெருக்கடிக்குத் தீர்வாக உலகை மறுபங்கீடு செய்யும் தேசிய, பிராந்திய ஆக்கிரமிப்பு யுத்தங்களை கட்டவிழ்க்கும், தேசங்களை கபளீகரம் செய்யும் நவீன காலனியாதிக்க கொள்கைகளை நடைமுறையாக்க- பலவந்தமாக திணிக்க- ஒன்றுபடும் அதேவேளையில், அமெரிக்கா தனது சுய மேலாதிக்கத்தை நிறுவ தனது அணிகளுக்குள்ளேயே போராடுகிறது.

* இந்த உலக மறுபங்கீடு சமாதான வழிகளில் நடந்த காலகட்டம் முடிவுக்கு வந்துவிட்டது.

* உலக மறுபங்கீட்டிற்கான பொது வழி 'ஆட்சிக்கவிழ்ப்புகளை நோக்கமாகக் கொண்ட தேசிய ஆக்கிரமிப்பு யுத்தங்கள்' என்பதாக ஆகிவிட்டது.

* இந்தப் பொது வழியில் மற்றொரு போர்முனை மத்திய ஆசியாவில் ரசியாவின் காலடியில் திறக்கப்பட்டுவிட்டது.

* தற்காலிக செயல்தந்திர திருப்பங்கள் எதுவும் இந்தப் பொதுத் திசைவழியை மாற்றாது.

________________________________________________________

Georgia Russia: WAR

For S. Ossetians, Bitterness After Attacks

Residents of Separatist Zone Describe Georgian Assault That Destroyed a Swath of Their Capital
By Peter FinnWashington Post Foreign ServiceSunday, August 17, 2008; A10 TSKHINVALI, Georgia, Aug. 16 --

The windows were blown out of the old synagogue here, and the wooden bimah splintered and partially collapsed. Shattered glass covered the floor, and parts of the ornately painted walls were ripped off. But the old building held, and it protected 40 people who took shelter in its spacious basement as the neighborhood above them was reduced to rubble.

"Three days we were here, without water, without bread," said Zemsira Tiblova, 60. "We had 14 children with us."
"Unforgivable," said her husband, Georgi Bestaev. "It was inhuman to bomb us."
The war between Georgia and Russia was centered on this town of at most 10,000 people, and it cut a swath of destruction, severely damaging many homes and apartment buildings. Gaping holes scar five-story blocks of apartments, the detritus of what was once ordinary life
blown onto shattered balconies. In one neighborhood, along Telman Street, house after crumpled house was a scorched shell, bricks piled high in basements exposed to the sunlight. The area is about 200 yards from destroyed separatist government buildings in central Tskhinvali, an acknowledged target of
Georgian forces.
A school, a library and a kindergarten were blackened and pockmarked from small-arms fire, as were the houses around them. And the city was strewn with the ruined armor of both Georgian and Russian forces.
At certain moments, in certain places, the smell of rotting corpses was in the air.
Here in Tskhinvali, there was no doubt that Georgia started the war with Russia and much bitterness about the rain of artillery and rockets that the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili used in its efforts to capture the city. The Georgian government said much of the destruction of Tskhinvali was caused by a Russian counteroffensive, but that argument carries no weight with residents here, some of them clearly traumatized.
People insist that a terrible barrage struck the city late Aug. 7 and continued into the morning -- accounts supported by Western monitors who were also forced into their cellars. Indeed, buildings used by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were damaged, one
severely.
"Grad came and hit us," said Garik Gabayev, referring to the fearsome BM-21 multiple rocket system employed by Georgian forces. "Grad" is a word that has entered the vocabulary of this town, cited by one resident after another as they described what they experienced.
Gabayev sat outside Saturday afternoon, just down the street from his father-in-law's pancaked home.
"I don't remember anything," he said, visibly shaking. "All the walls collapsed."
The scale of the destruction is undeniable; some streets summon iconic images of Stalingrad during World War II or Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, which was leveled in two wars between Russian and Chechen separatists.
But the number of dead remains in dispute. Mikhail Minsayev, the minister of interior in the separatist South Ossetian government, told
reporters Saturday that as many as 2,100 people had been killed. When challenged on that figure by reporters, who cited statements by medical workers and human rights groups that there was no evidence of such a high death toll, he said people quickly buried the dead in their
yards or took the bodies to North Ossetia in Russia for burial.
In conversations here, everyone interviewed said they had lost either no family members or one person. But those were interviews with people whose cellars had held. Many clearly had not.
Traveling here from the Georgian city of Gori and out to the Roki Tunnel that connects with Russia, the revenge taken by some of the inhabitants of South Ossetia was visible in the Georgian fields set on fire and the blackened, abandoned homes in Georgian villages north of
Tskhinvali. Two homes in those Georgian villages were ablaze Saturday night.
Russian military officials blamed the destruction on marauding South Ossetian militias and said they are attempting to restore order.
The headquarters of Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinvali was destroyed. The barracks where 500 soldiers slept took direct hits from tank fire.
A destroyed Russian tank sits by the barracks wall. The base's headquarters, dining hall and recreation center are ruined.
Vladimir Ivanov, deputy commander of the Russian peacekeeping force that was stationed here, said that 15 Russian peacekeepers were
killed during the war and that many more were wounded.
Russian peacekeepers have been in South Ossetia since the early 1990s, when a cease-fire was declared after an earlier conflict. This breakaway province of Georgia has since had de facto independence from the central authorities in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.
Georgian officials accused the Russian peacekeeping force of backing the South Ossetian separatists and failing to rein in their attacks on Georgian villages and territory in Georgia proper.
The war has poisoned people here against any future connection with Georgia although the province remains within Georgia's internationally recognized borders.
"Georgia is finished here; they are never coming back," Bestaev said. "We cannot live without Russia. We must become part of Russia, because we can't handle the problem independently."
Russia signs up to Georgia truce

Russia has followed Georgia in signing a French-brokered peace plan for ending their nine-day-old conflict.
But Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the withdrawal of Russian forces from deep inside Georgia depended on extra security measures being put in place.
He said Russian forces were encountering "problems caused by Georgia", and refused to put a timetable on their departure.
US President George W Bush again demanded Russian forces withdraw. *****************************************

PEACE PLAN

No more use of force

Stop all military actions for good

Free access to humanitarian aid

Georgian troops return to their places of permanent deployment

Russian troops to return to pre-conflict positions

International talks about future status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia ******************************************

A simmering conflict between Georgia and Russia erupted on 7 August when Georgia launched an assault to retake its Russian-backed separatist province of South Ossetia. It led to a massive counter-offensive by Russia, with Russia moving deeper into Georgian territory.
Scores of people have been killed by the fighting and tens of thousands displaced.
US-backed Georgia has vowed it will not accept any loss of its territory, but Russia insists that following the recent violence, residents are unlikely to want to live in the same state as Georgians.
The future of another breakaway region, Abkhazia, is also at stake.
Georgia's foreign ministry said on Saturday that Russian-backed separatists from the province had seized 13 villages and a power plant within Georgia.
The claim could not immediately be independently confirmed.
Security steps On Saturday Russian President Dmitry Medvedev followed his Georgian counterpart, Mikhail Saakashvili, in signing the truce.
Among the six points in the agreement, both sides agree to pull back their forces to pre-conflict positions.
George Bush on the status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia
But reports say the agreement contains a provision that allows Russia to implement additional security measures on a temporary basis ahead of the arrival of international ceasefire monitors.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters it was these security measures that would be implemented "first and foremost".
Diplomats have said that the UN Security Council is expected to vote this weekend on a draft resolution formalising the ceasefire agreement.
Russian forces are now far beyond South Ossetia's borders in Georgian territory.
They are reported to have occupied the central town of Khashuri, giving them control of all but one of the major towns on the highway across Georgia from the Black Sea to the capital Tbilisi.
And the BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse puts them within 35km (22 miles) of Tbilisi itself. He says they do not look like they are pulling out - and in fact seem to have dug in.
'Barbarians'
The US has called a number of times for Russian forces to leave its ally's territory, and President Bush repeated the message from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on Saturday.
He said Mr Medvedev's signing of the truce was "hopeful", but that there could be no question that South Ossetia and Abkhazia would remain within Georgian borders - borders that were internationally recognised.
There was "no room for debate on this matter", Mr Bush said.
President Saakashvili signed the ceasefire agreement on Friday, after a meeting lasting more than four hours with visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Reports suggest Mr Saakashvili only reluctantly agreed to another of the plan's clauses - international talks about the future status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
After the meeting he launched a bitter attack on Moscow, calling Russian troops "21st Century barbarians" and accusing them of war crimes.
He criticised the West for not granting Georgia membership of Nato, saying it could have prevented the fighting.
Russia argues its forces are there to ensure civilians face no threat from Georgian troops.
South Ossetia has had de facto independence since the end of a civil war in 1992.

Georgia fallout felt in Iraq

U.S. troop withdrawal plans could be affected by the exit of 2,000 Georgian troops from IraqBy Peter SpiegelLos Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 15, 2008
WASHINGTON — Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, is being forced to grapple with one of the unexpected byproducts of the conflict in Georgia: His plan to withdraw American forces in Iraq was predicated on all partner nations keeping their troop levels intact.
With nearly 2,000 Georgian troops returning home in the midst of the crisis there, the coalition has lost what one senior military official called one of the largest and most capable contributions to the Iraq effort. As a result, the official said, Petraeus is now assessing whether he will have
to change his plans, including possibly delaying the return home of some U.S. forces this year.
"One of the assumptions for the future in Iraq was that coalition contributions would remain relatively stable," said the senior military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss Iraq troop deployments publicly. "This is the third-largest contingent, and a very capable contingent. This changes the calculus."
A military officer in Baghdad cautioned that Petraeus had not completed his assessment on force reductions when the Georgians left, and added that U.S. and Iraqi forces had so far been able to take over the vacated positions.
But another military official familiar with Iraq planning said Georgian troops had been central to a new push to block weapons shipments coming across the border from Iran into southeastern Iraq, setting up a base in the city of Kut and patrolling nearby border regions.
"You can't lose the Georgian component without some impact," said the military official, who also requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss Iraq troop deployments publicly. "If you had to assess the 30 countries in Iraq as a coalition force, Georgia was among
the top tier, both in number and capabilities."
Petraeus' 45-day assessment period began at the end of last month when the last of the five U.S. brigades deployed in the troop buildup last year departed from Iraq. At the end of the assessment, he is to deliver his recommendation on whether U.S. troop drawdowns can resume in the fall. Over the course of this year, American force levels have gone from a peak of about 170,000 to approximately 140,000, just above pre-buildup levels.
The sharp reduction in violence in Iraq in recent months has led many at the Pentagon to believe that Petraeus will call for additional troop reductions by the end of the year. Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said after a visit to Iraq in July that he
expected to be able to recommend a resumption of withdrawals next month.
The rising violence in Afghanistan has also put pressure on military planners to withdraw troops from Iraq, since significant increases in Afghan forces cannot occur without them. According to Pentagon officials, Mullen's staff is weighing a recommendation to send the next unit
scheduled to deploy to Iraq -- the 2nd Brigade of the Army's 4th Infantry Division -- to Afghanistan instead, perhaps as early as December.
One of the military officials said that although the Georgian contingent was the size of about half a U.S. brigade, it was unlikely that its departure would derail plans to send the U.S. brigade to Afghanistan.
But the official said that the Georgian mission along the border had begun to have some impact and that the withdrawal schedule of smaller U.S. units could be affected, because it is unlikely another allied military would take up the task.
In addition to the border mission, Georgian troops were responsible for providing security to the U.N. mission in Iraq.
"They were beginning to establish some real capability along the border to help ramp up [Iraqi security forces] and slow down the Iranian flows of illegal arms across the border," the official said.
The departure of the Georgians and the continued withdrawal of British and Polish troops has drastically reduced the number of non-U.S. foreign troops available to Petraeus. Britain maintains 4,100 troops in Iraq, the largest contingent after the U.S., but British Prime Minister
Gordon Brown outlined a plan last month that would resume withdrawals over the next year to where few would remain in southern Iraq.
Times staff writer Julian E. Barnes contributed to this report.

International Relations 14.08.2008 Poland,

US Sign Missile Defense Deal

Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Poland said it was promised US Patriot missiles as part of the deal Poland and the United States have reached agreement on stationing 10 interceptor missiles on Polish soil as part of an American missile defense system, according to Polish Prime Minister Tusk.
"We have reached a deal with the United States on the shield," after Washington agreed to meet Poland's key demand for defense aid separate from the anti-missile system, Tusk told Polish news channel TVN in a live interview.
"We would start with a battery under US command, but made available to the Polish army. Then there would be a second phase, involving
equipping the Polish army with missiles," Tusk added, emphasizing that negotiators had reached a "preliminary deal."
The agreement has been reached after more than 18 months of back-and-forth, often terse, negotiations between the two countries. Its
conclusion carries an especially symbolic weight in the aftermath of Russia's incursion into Georgia in recent days.
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Tusk said Poland's demands had been metIn return for agreeing to host 10 US missile interceptors on its soil, Poland will receive Patriot air defense missiles and increased military
cooperation with the US, according to a report by Poland's PAP news agency

US and Polish negotiators were meeting in Warsaw on Thursday in the latest in a series of talks that formally began in May 2007.

Czech deal already complete

In July, the Bush administration signed a deal with the neighboring Czech Republic on hosting a radar base -- the other part of the system to be based in the two ex-communist countries. Poland and Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.

Before the latest talks in Warsaw, top Polish government officials said a new US proposal was on the table and that Russia's military assault on Georgia had given an impetus to the missile defense talks.

A key Polish concern is boosting its air defenses after Moscow threatened to target the planned bases in its former direct sphere of influence.

Russia strongly opposes the US plan, despite assurances from Washington that the shield would target ballistic missile threats from countries like Iran and was not meant to undermine Russia's nuclear deterrent.

The Interfax news agency cites Konstantin Kosachev, who chairs the foreign affairs committee in the Russian lower house of parliament, as saying the agreement will spark "a real rise in tensions in Russian-American relations."

US and Poland rush to secure missile defence shield

America and Poland are rushing to secure a deal to build a controversial missile defence shield in Eastern Europe in response to Russia's invasion of Georgia.
By Harry de Quetteville in Berlin Last Updated: 7:12PM BST 14 Aug 2008
The Warsaw government said that talks with Washington to locate a missile silo in Poland to accompany a radar site in the Czech Republic were almost "at the finishing line".
US negotiations with Warsaw over the project, which would see a silo of 10 interceptor missiles housed in the north of the country, have been dragging on for more than a year.
But in the wake of Russia's advance into Georgia, both America and the centre-Right government of the Polish prime minister Donald Tusk appear determined to cement their alliance and complete the missile shield deal.
"We feel at the moment a greater concern for our safety," said Bogdan Klich, the Polish defence minister, evoking fears of a resurgent Russia widespread in the former Eastern Bloc.
"That's why every installation of the western world on the Polish territory has its meaning, because it anchors Poland more deeply to the West."
While America says the shield is designed to destroy lone-missiles from "rogue states" such as Iran, Russia considers it a strategic encirclement that undermines its nuclear deterrent. If agreed now, the system, which would twin the Polish missile silo with a radar station in the Czech Republic, would be ready by around 2012.
Mr Klich said that Poland and the US were "really at the finish line of these talks" over missile defence, hinting that Washington was finally prepared to meet Polish security demands in return for housing the missile silo.
Most significantly, Poland wants American-run Patriot missile batteries on its territory, in what it considers the best defence against potential Russian retaliation.
"It seems that the Americans have changed their view due to the situation in the Caucasus," Mr Klich said.
"In the eyes of Washington, this conflict has proven that Russia isn't a stable partner and continues to consider its international surroundings as its exclusive sphere of influence."
Analysts suggest that the conflict in Georgia has sent shockwaves through countries that once lay behind the Iron Curtain.
"Appeasement is over," said Carina O'Reilly, European Security Editor of Jane's Defence Weekly. "With Russian tanks rolling into Georgia, there's a feeling [among former eastern bloc states] that the tanks could roll over their borders too.
"There's a certain urgency now."
Mr Tusk, once considered to considerably more Russia-friendly than his Moscow-sceptic predecessor Jaroslaw Kaczynski, is now making that urgency clear.
"Our arguments about the need for a permanent presence of US troops and missiles on Polish soil have been taken seriously by the American side," he said. "The events in the Caucasus show clearly that such security guarantees are indispensable.
"As soon as we are sure that Poland's security has been reinforced to the degree we want, we're not going to wait for hours to sign a deal."
Russian general says Poland a nuclear 'target'

Poland has made itself a nuclear target for Russia’s military by hosting elements of a US anti-missile system, a senior Russian general warned. By Damien McElroy in Tbilisi Last Updated: 5:45PM BST 15 Aug 2008
General Anatoly Nogovitsyn said that Russia?s military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons 'against the allies of countries having nuclear weapon'

Moscow issued the direct threat to another US ally.
“Poland is making itself a target. This is 100 percent” certain, Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted General Anatoly Nogovitsyn as saying.
“It becomes a target for attack. Such targets are destroyed as a first priority,” Gen Nogovitsy was quoted as saying.
He added that Russia’s military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons “against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them,” Interfax said.
George W Bush, speaking in Washington accused Russian President Dmitry Medvedev of "bullying" his neighbours and said the tactics were working against Russia's interests on the international stage.
Following months of discontent over the planned siting of the US missile shield, Russia reacted furiously last night when Washington sweetened its package with an agreement to sell a Patriot defence battery to Warsaw. “The fact that this was signed in a period of very difficult crisis in
the relations between Russia and the United States over the situation in Georgia shows that, of course, the missile defence system will be deployed not against Iran but against the strategic potential of Russia,” said Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s envoy to Nato.
“I consider that the United States is not acting in a cautious manner in this situation.”
The US Secretary of State arrived in Tbilisi today to secure the withdrawal of Russian combat forces to ceasefire lines but Russian forces maintained a stranglehold on key strategic points from the west to the east of Georgia, though the military appeared to have begun a staged
withdrawal from the flashpoint town of Gori.
Miss Rice brought with her a draft French-brokered ceasefire that would require Russia to withdraw its combat troops from Georgia but would allow Russian peacekeepers to remain in the flash-point separatist region of South Ossetia and temporarily patrol outside the area.
However, Miss Rice said the document would preserve the long-term principle of Georgia’s territorial integrity. “It needs to be a formal ceasefire, which is what we are working on,” she said. “But in order to get to that point there really does have to be important clarifications on
a couple of these points (in the ceasefire) in order to make sure that Georgian interests are protected. Because the United States would never ask Georgia to sign on to something where its interests are not protected.”
By holding Gori, Russian forces effectively cut the country in half because the city sits along Georgia’s only significant east-west highway. But restrictions on movements in and out of the town were being lifted as Russia moved back. “It’s quiet there, but now there are problems with
food,” said Alexander Lomaia, the head of Georgia’s national security council, who entered the town yesterday.
The Georgian interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said there are no Russian troops in the city of Kutaisi, Georgia’s second-largest city, despite reports they were headed in that direction overnight. Georgian officials said that troops remain in the Black Sea port city of Poti.
The UN refugee agency raised its estimates of the number of displaced by the conflict. It said that 118,000 people had fled their homes because of fighting between Georgia and Russia and marauding by militias.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Antonio Guterres, will visit Tblisi and Moscow next week and will demand greater access for aid agencies to the conflict zones, according to his spokesman, Ron Redmond.
He said: The latest estimates of displacement related to the conflict now total more than 118,000, based on figures provided by the governments.”
Russia rejected a Human Rights Watch report that its aircraft had used cluster bombs in two separate raids on the towns of Ruisi and Gori on Tuesday, killing at least 11 civilians and injuring dozens. Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of Russia’s General Staff, said:
“We never use cluster bombs. There is no need to do so.”
US, Poland strike deal for anti-missile bases

Russia expresses its displeasure with the agreement, which is seen as a response to the Georgia invasion.By Arthur Brightfrom the August 16, 2008 edition
The United States and Poland have announced an agreement to put US anti-missile interceptors in Poland to defend the US and Europe from "rogue" missile attacks. But Russia, having recently invaded Georgia, sees itself as the agreement's target.
The Los Angeles Times reports that the deal, reached Thursday, would allow the US to place 10 anti-missile interceptors in Poland, in exchange for upgrading Polish military defenses with a battery of Patriot missiles.
Washington says the planned system, which is not yet operational, is needed to protect the U.S. and Europe from possible attacks by missile- armed "rogue states," such as Iran. The Kremlin, however, believes it is aimed at Russia's missile force and warns that it will worsen
tensions....
In recent days, Polish leaders have said the fighting in the Caucasus justified Poland's demands it get additional security guarantees from the U.S. in exchange for allowing the antimissile base on its soil. But after the deal was announced, American and Polish officials sought to play
down any connection to the current conflict.
"This is not linked to the situation in Georgia," the chief U.S. negotiator, John Rood, said after the pact was signed. But in announcing the deal, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk noted that it included a "mutual commitment" between the US and Poland, which, the Times adds, appears "to be a reference to Russia, which has threatened to aim its nuclear-armed missiles at Poland – a former Soviet satellite – if it allows the U.S. site on its soil."
Russian officials were quick to express their displeasure with the missile deal.

Russia's envoy to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO), Dmitry Rogozin, told Reuters that the timing of the agreement proves that Russia is its intended target.
"The fact that this was signed in a period of very difficult crisis in the relations between Russia and the United States over the situation in Georgia shows that, of course, the missile defense system will be deployed not against Iran but against the strategic potential of Russia,"
Dmitry Rogozin said in a telephone interview....
"I consider that the United States is not acting in a cautious manner in this situation," Rogozin said when asked about U.S.-Russian relations and the situation in Georgia.
"Instead of getting full moral and political support in the struggle against real aggression and ethnic cleansing, we have heard a mass of unpleasant words and threats. That will of course not strengthen our relations."
Mr. Rogozin was not the only Russian voice to criticize the deal. The Associated Press writes that Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the Russian general staff, warned that the deal "cannot go unpunished."
A Polskie Radio website, The News, reports that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cancelled a trip to Warsaw meant to improve
Polish-Russian relations while a Russian parliamentary official warned that Russia may now aim its rockets at Poland.
The BBC reports that US President George Bush was "very pleased" with the deal, but notes that a White House spokesperson denied that the agreement had anything to do with Russia. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski made similar comments to the BBC.
"We agreed this negotiating phase a week ago, which was ... before the events in Georgia, and because of the US calendar there was some urgency," [Sikorski] said.
"But, what is crucial, and what decided the success of the talks over the last couple of days, was that the US offered us new proposals."
The Times of London suggests that the "new proposals" that cinched the deal were the US's agreement to deploy Patriot missiles, which will bolster Polish air defenses and "are supposed to reassure Poland in case the Russians start rattling their sabres."
At least one Russian official has said that the agreement's practical military impact is minor, however. RIA Novosti reports that Andrei Klimov,
deputy head of the State Duma's international affairs committee, downplayed the strategic importance of the missile base as well as the timing of the agreement. "There might be a psychological element in it, but talks with Poland had been dragging on long enough beforehand," he said.
The agreement saw criticism not only in Russia, but in the West as well. TheHuffington Post blogger Joe Cirincione wrote that the missile deal brings no security gains and is instead driven by proponents of an unproven technology.
The proposed deployment of missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic and the Russian-Georgia conflict are two separate issues.
This is not about defending the democracy in Georgia; this is about ideologues trying to save a weapons system they have supported despite mounting evidence of its irrelevance to the threats America faces....
With the exception of those who have been drinking the missile defense Kool-aid, experts agree that long-range missile interception does not work. That is why Congress wisely ordered that no funds be spent on these European bases until after realistic tests can show the weapons
can work and the Czech and the Polish parliaments approve any deal. Neither is likely before 2010.
Meanwhile, F. William Engdahl of the Center for Research on Globalisation, a Montreal-based think tank, argues that the US-Poland deal is "the most dangerous move towards nuclear war the world has seen since the 1962 Cuba Missile crisis."
Far from a defensive move to protect European NATO states from a Russian nuclear attack, as military strategists have pointed out, the US missiles in Poland pose a total existential threat to the future existence of the Russian nation. The Russian Government has repeatedly warned of this since US plans were first unveiled in early 2007. Now, despite repeated diplomatic attempts by Russia to come to an agreement with
Washington, the Bush Administration, in the wake of a humiliating US defeat in Georgia, has pressured the Government of Poland to finally sign the pact. The consequences could be unthinkable for Europe and the planet.

From The Times UK August 14, 2008
George Bush squares up to Vladimir Putin over Georgia

Tom Baldwin in Washington

President Bush dispatched US military hardware to the heart of the Caucasus yesterday and warned Russia that it could be frozen out of international bodies as punishment for its aggression in Georgia.
In his toughest criticism of Russia since becoming President, Mr Bush accused it of breaching the provisional ceasefire agreed with Georgia only 24 hours earlier.
He cited intelligence showing that Russian troops had again taken the town of Gori and could threaten the capital, Tbilisi. He insisted that Moscow respect the former Soviet republic’s territorial integrity. There were also reports of Russian-backed militia in South Ossetia looting ethnic Georgian villages and killing inhabitants.
“To begin to repair the damage to its relations with the United States, Europe and other nations, and to begin restoring its place in the world, Russia must keep its word and act to end this crisis,” Mr Bush said.
The US is in talks with allies about whether to suspend Russia’s membership of the G8 club of industrialised nations. There is a growing clamour to block Russia’s membership of the World Trade Organisation and to rescind an invitation for it to join the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development.
Mr Bush’s statement, delivered in stern tones outside the White House, was stronger than his cautious comments last week, which reflected the State Department’s unhappiness with Georgia’s use of force against pro-Russian separatist rebels in South Ossetia.
Although direct military intervention is not being considered, Pentagon sources have hinted that a limited number of troops could be deployed to support what Mr Bush described as a vigorous and continuing humanitarian mission headed by the US military.
The first US air force transport aircraft arrived last night, and the navy was heading to the Black Sea – which is controlled by Russian warships – to deliver humanitarian and medical supplies direct to Georgian ports. “We expect Russia to honour its commitment to let in all forms of
humanitarian assistance,” Mr Bush said.
President Saakashvili of Georgia seized on the announcement to say that Tbilisi airport and Poti port would be placed under US military
control, a claim the Pentagon swiftly denied.
Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, flew to France last night to meet President Sarkozy before heading to Tbilisi. Sergei Lavrov, her
Russian counterpart, said that the US must choose between supporting the Georgian leadership and maintaining a partnership with Russia on
international issues. Dr Rice said: “This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbours, occupy a
capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed.”
The Georgian President had accused the US of squandering its support among former Soviet republics. Diplomats say that they have little
leverage against a Kremlin in which the strings are still being pulled by Vladimir Putin, the former President. The most likely sanctions are those that would damage Russia’s prestige.
Mr Bush said: “Russia has sought to integrate into the diplomatic, political, economic and security structures of the 21st century. Now Russia is putting its aspirations at risk by taking actions in Georgia that are inconsistent with the principles of those institutions.”
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said that the EU should reassess plans for a partnership agreement with Russia. For the time being, measures being taken have been limited to a US boycott of a Nato meeting with a Russian delegation and the likely cancellation of a joint naval
exercise.

December 20, 2007

Central Asia on Front Line in Energy Battle

By ANDREW E. KRAMERBUKHARA, Uzbekistan — In the scrub brush desert south of this ancient Silk Road town, the natural gas wellheads are built on modest concrete platforms about the size of basketball courts. Because the gas is naturally pressurized, pumps are not needed to bring it to the surface. Pipes simply kiss the ground and gas pours through them.
The issue is where the gas goes from there.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the United States and its European allies sought to ensure that Central Asia’s enormous oil and gas wealth would flow through pipelines bypassing Russia. It was the latest version of the Great Game, the 19th-century contest between Imperial
Britain and Czarist Russia for dominance in the region. Lately, however, the West is falling behind, as a torch lighting ceremony last month made clear.
Executives from Lukoil, the Russian oil company, and government officials from Moscow had come to inaugurate the latest Central Asia gas
field to come online. Developed by Lukoil, the Khauzak field is estimated to hold 400 billion cubic meters of natural gas, which Lukoil has sold
in advance for the next 32 years to Gazprom, the Russian natural gas giant.
Coming as some political developments in the region had renewed Western companies’ hopes of doing business in Central Asia, the Nov. 29
ceremony — held before a planeload of Moscow-based journalists flown in for the occasion — seemed tailored to remind the world of
Russia’s lead in the new Great Game.
“We have a good head start and we will use it,” Russia’s first deputy prime minister, Sergei B. Ivanov, said from a makeshift podium above
the red sands of the Kyzylkum desert.
The Bush administration has identified Central Asia as a promising alternative to the volatile Middle East as a source for oil and natural gas. As American officials pursue a policy of encouraging energy exports that bypass Russia, they are also trying to pry open Central Asia to Western oil investment.
Russia is countering by raising its investment in Central Asian fields and pipelines.
Much is at stake. Russia is the world’s largest natural gas producer and a major supplier to Europe. It relies on Central Asian supplies to meet these commitments.
“The Russians are very keen to fight their corner in Central Asia,” Jonathan Stern, a natural gas expert at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, said in a telephone interview.
“The Russians are not just cozying up” to Central Asia’s autocratic leaders to achieve their aims, Mr. Stern said. “Russian companies have put their money where their mouth is.”
Flush with cash from their own oil boom, the Russians are investing heavily in new development, posing a challenge to Western companies like Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips that are eager to expand their Central Asian operations.
After an investment of $3.5 billion, the Lukoil project will tie together three natural gas and gas condensate fields by 2011 to produce 11 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year for export.
In the three years since Lukoil signed the production sharing agreement with the Uzbek government for Khauzak, Uzbek politics have taken a sharp turn in Russia’s favor, shutting Western oil majors out of Uzbekistan.
In May 2005, President Islam A. Karimov’s troops opened fire on a mixed crowd of escaped prisoners, gunmen and antigovernment demonstrators in a square in the Fergana Valley town of Andijon, killing hundreds in what human rights groups say was the worst massacre of
street protesters since Tiananmen Square in 1989.
The episode led to deep strains in diplomatic relations with the United States. Even before the shooting, human rights groups accused Uzbek authorities of abuses, including two incidents in which political prisoners were reportedly boiled to death in an Uzbek prison. Prospects for a
Western role in the country’s natural gas industry waned.
In contrast, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin visited Mr. Karimov in Uzbekistan after the Andijon shootings and endorsed his justification.
In 2006, Lukoil expanded its presence here in a consortium with the China National Petroleum Corporation, Petronas of Malaysia and the Korea National Oil Company to explore a natural gas deposit beneath the dry bed of the Aral Sea estimated to hold more than one trillion
cubic meters of gas.
And in neighboring Turkmenistan, Mr. Putin secured an agreement in May to expand natural gas exports via a branch of the Central Asia- Center natural gas pipeline, which runs along the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, north toward Russia. It was the most significant energy
deal in that country this year. And this summer, crews from China, another country ascendant in Central Asia, began exploration drilling for gas on the eastern bank of the Amu Darya river, according to Mr. Stern, the Oxford Energy analyst.
To be sure, in the 1990s European and American companies made great gains in Kazakhstan — which has emerged as the leading commercial power in Central Asia. Chief among those gains was Kashagan, the largest oil find in the world since the discovery of Alaska’s
Prudhoe Bay in the 1970s. But the deal has been mired in dispute, with Kazakh authorities forcing a renegotiation of terms with consortium partners Eni of Italy, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips of the United States, Royal Dutch Shell and Inpex Holdings of Japan.
Kazakhstan has also turned its attention to the east, planning a natural gas pipeline over the Tian Shan mountains to the neighboring Chinese province of Xinjiang, a snub to American and European companies and governments. The West supports a western route under the Caspian
Sea, via Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, and on to world markets — threading the pipes through a narrow corridor between Russia and Iran to plug into the Central Asian oil and gas fields.
The BP-operated BTC oil pipeline and a parallel gas pipeline now stop in Azerbaijan, on the western shore of the Caspian, and the grand project seems to be stalled there for now.
The next step is to build the trans-Caspian leg, which Russia is blocking through a mix of political and business strategy. The Russians are buying up much of the natural gas production capacity to make the Western plan commercially nonviable because of a lack of available gas.
With the help of Iran, they are also contesting the legal status of the Caspian Sea that the oil and gas pipelines would pass under.
Moscow is also offering guarantees of support to the Central Asian potentates if a Ukrainian-style domestic uprising should take place, leading to a change in government, something the United States and Europe cannot do.
In one encouraging sign for the Western majors, the death last spring of the longtime leader of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, has brought a modest political thaw and heightened expectations of new oil and gas concessions. During the rule of Mr. Niyazov, who gave himself
the name Turkmenbashi, or Father of all Turkmens, and who had commissioned golden statues in his likeness, Turkmenistan had mostly dropped off the agenda of Western oil companies.
So it was no surprise that Western companies rushed to sponsor this year’s Turkmenistan Oil and Gas Conference in Ashgabat last month;
Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger and Statoil were among the sponsors, though no deals were signed.
Sharing the upbeat mood, Samuel Bodman, the United States secretary of energy, delivered a speech on Nov. 15, noting “opportunities are opening that could not have been imagined even a year ago,” according to an Energy Department transcript.
Still, as Mr. Bodman spoke, a few hundred miles away, across the Kyzylkum desert in Uzbekistan, Russian engineers were welding the last
pipes into place at Lukoil’s field. At the Nov. 29 opening ceremony, the pipes glistened with fresh paint and hissed with natural gas flowing northward toward Russia.

Kosovo: American and German geo-strategic plan to tame Russia.

Former Leader in Kosovo Acquitted of War Crimes
By MARLISE SIMONSPublished: April 4, 2008PARIS —
The United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Thursday acquitted a former commander of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army of all charges of
war crimes in a decision that could inflame anti-Kosovo sentiment in Serbia just weeks after Kosovo unilaterally declared independence.
Times Topics: KosovoThe commander, Ramush Haradinaj, who also briefly served as prime minister of Kosovo three years ago, was found not guilty of murder,
persecution, rape and torture of Kosovo Serb civilians. The crimes were said to have been carried out by men under his command in 1998, when the rebels fought to
free their largely ethnic Albanian region from Serbian rule.
Another rebel commander, Idriz Balaj, was also acquitted, while a third defendant, Lahi Brahimaj, was sentenced to six years in prison for torture and cruel treatment
of prisoners.
The men who were acquitted may return home as early as Friday, and they are expected to be given a hero’s welcome. But in court, in summarizing their verdict, the
judges said that the case presented had many flaws. They cited vague evidence and widespread fear among witnesses, suggesting that the full version of events had
not been told.
The complete text of the judgment was not available, but in their summary, the judges gave much weight to the fear and the evident intimidation of witnesses. Lawyers
said that in no other case before the tribunal had witness intimidation been so widespread.
The judges said that they had serious difficulties in getting many of almost 100 witnesses to testify freely. They said that they had to permit 34 witnesses to hide their
identities from the public, that 18 were subpoenaed because they refused to testify and that others said they dared not talk once they were in court.
The case against Mr. Haradinaj was fraught with difficulties from the start. Western diplomats tried to dissuade Carla Del Ponte, who was the chief prosecutor, from
indicting Mr. Haradinaj, arguing that he was a respected political leader who played an important role in stabilizing Kosovo.
Within the prosecutor’s office, some lawyers also had warned that the case against Mr. Haradinaj was weak because it would be hard to link him to the crimes.
Prosecutors complained repeatedly about pressure on the witnesses, saying that those most afraid were former rebel fighters who had been expected to testify as
insiders. At least three designated witnesses were killed before the trial, prosecutors said.
In November, the trial ground to a halt when the defense lawyers for all three accused unexpectedly announced that they would not call any witnesses because they
considered the prosecution case so weak.
For Serbs, the acquittal of two of the former rebel commanders, whose forces were backed and supported by the West, was likely to be viewed as one more insult.
Kosovo has long been portrayed as a victim of Serbia. Only one other case at the tribunal has focused on the abuses and killings by fighters of the Kosovo Liberation
Army. Human rights groups have documented numerous killings and instances of mistreatment of those not siding with the rebels.
Oliver Ivanovic, who represents Kosovo Serbs, told the FoNet news agency in Belgrade that the acquittals would make it even more difficult to demand that the
Serbian government arrest Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, wartime Bosnian Serb leaders who remain fugitives.
Serbs will now see the tribunal as even more of a political, rather than a legal, institution, Mr. Ivanovic said. He added, “It will be now very difficult to convince any
Serb that this is not an anti-Serb tribunal.”
In Thursday’s ruling, Mr. Brahimaj was sentenced to six years for the abuse of prisoners detained in a camp where he was in charge. It said that he had personally
participated in beatings and torture.
Mr. Brahimaj, who has already served three years, is likely to be freed in a year if he gets the usual reduction for good behavior that is common in European countries
where he may serve his time.
After Mr. Haradinaj surrendered to the court, in 2005, he was allowed to return to Kosovo to await his trial. Much to the frustration of Ms. Del Ponte, he was
treated favorably when the court permitted him to play a limited political role at home, a privilege granted to no other detainee.
It was not clear if prosecutors would appeal.

Is Kosovo the end of Europe?
Rene Magritte, the celebrated Belgian surrealist painter, once painted an apple and wrote on it, “This is not an apple.” He did the same on a pipe. Today, he could as
well paint his country, Belgium, and certainly Kosovo, the youngest nation in the world, and write, “This is not a country.”
(Ash Narain Roy, Mainstream, India) Monday, March 31, 2008 Catalonia)
Ethnic Albanians in Macedonia have also intensified their autonomy demands, an obvious road to independence. Many believe the upsurge of violence in
Tibet is not unrelated to Kosovo.
What is the American gameplan in Kosovo? Russia certainly sees a red signal. Kosovo is a dress-rehearsal for redrawing boundaries in Eurasia and the Middle East.
It is a new balkanisation, part of American and German geo-strategic plan, to tame Russia. The goal is to drive a wedge in the Balkans to advance a spurious form of
European integration. A clear pattern is discernible. Since the former Yugoslavia was a thorn in the American-German flesh, it has been systematically targeted. The
NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 was a well-devised plan. It was no coincidence that Bosnia-Herzegovina was divided along ethnic and religious lines-Serb,
Croat, Bosniak, Christians and Muslims. To these ethnic-religious divides have been added further sectarian divisions within Christianity-Eastern Orthodoxy versus
Roman Catholicism.
Facts speak for themselves. Bosnia's Constitution was written at a US Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio by American and European experts. Efforts are now on to
establish a Greater Albania which will bring together what are now Albania and Kosovo as well as adjacent parts of Serbia and Montenegro, Western Macedonia
and the north-western regions of Greece.
Kosovo has created a new divide even in the ranks of European states. While, Germany, Britain, Italy and France have recognised Kosovo, countries like Spain,
Greece, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus have opposed Kosovo's independence. There is a perception among multinational, multi-ethnic and multicultural
states that Kosovo's independence will give a new lease of life to separatists in their own midst-Basques in Spain, Tiroleans in Italy, Hungarians in Romania and the
like.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has reacted most vehemently calling Kosovo's independence as the "beginning of the end of Europe". Moscow is right in
maintaining that Kosovo's independence will rekindle fire in the frozen conflict zones-Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria etc. Way back in 1992, South Ossetia
had declared independence from Georgia. Only thanks to the presence of Russian peacekeepers a bigger conflict was avoided. Russia has not recognised South
Ossetia as yet, but it could exercise that option. Moscow has also hinted that the Kosovo precedent could be invoked in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-
Karabakh. In fact, Moscow has decided to withdraw from a CIS treaty imposing sanctions against Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia. It is not hard to imagine
what happens if Russia decides to use the Kosovo approach to resolving conflicts in its own backyard. Even supposing Russian troops are sent to Serb-dominated
northern Kosovo, it could create a flashpoint of conflict.
Is the US trying to appease the Muslim world by its support for Kosovo and thus seeking to make up for the folly of the Iraq war? It is possible that some Muslim
regimes may see the American gameplan in that light. But what kind of message is Washington conveying to the Iraqi Kurds? The US says it is backing a federal Iraq
where Arabs, Kurds, Turkomans, Assyrians as also Shias and Sunnis could live together. Can Iraqis be blamed for thinking that the federal formula is a cover to
break the country?
The West's stance is inconsistent and self-contradictory. If it supports Kosovo's independence, why does it oppose the independence of Flanders in Belgium? Few
believe Kosovo will actually be free; it will become a protectorate of the EU. What is worse, Kosovo is likely to see the Serb-dominated parts walking away. In
pursuing their geo-strategic interests, the US and Germany may end up reviving old chauvinist passions and creating a monster that may turn their dream into a
nightmare. It is too dangerous to fiddle with the Balkans' fault lines. The US smiles at Kosovo only to frown at Russia. Come on America! Your bare teeth are
showing.
The author is the Associate Director, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi.

Bush urging Nato expansion east
US President George W Bush has repeated his call for Nato to expand eastwards.
Speaking in Romania ahead of Nato's summit in Bucharest, he said the former Soviet states of Ukraine and Georgia should be offered paths to membership.
"We must make clear that Nato welcomes the aspirations of Georgia and Ukraine for membership in Nato," said Mr Bush.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said his country would not sulk over the expansion plans - but stressed that they would not "go unanswered".
"This will not be left without an answer, I can assure you," Mr Lavrov told parliament in Moscow.
"But we will respond pragmatically, not like small boys in school who sulk at those who bully them, run out of the room, slam the door and start crying in the corner.
"We must concentrate on increasing our economic power and taking our defence capabilities to a higher technologic level."
More time
Mr Bush said Georgia and Ukraine should be offered "a clear path" towards the goal of Nato membership.
"Nato membership must remain open to all of Europe's democracies that seek it, and are ready to share in the responsibilities of Nato," he went on.
The prospect of more ex-Soviet states joining Nato is opposed by Russia, while Nato members France and Germany have warned that it will worsen relations with
Moscow.
The Cold War is over and Russia is not our enemy George W Bush
German defence minister Franz Josef Jung said on Wednesday that Berlin did not oppose Nato membership for Ukraine and Georgia, but added: "It will still take
some more time to create the exact conditions for Georgia and Ukraine to be able to contribute to guaranteeing security."
French prime minister Francois Fillon said on Tuesday of Ukrainian and Georgian membership: "We think that it is not the correct response to the balance of power in
Europe."
Mr Bush spoke at the Black Sea resort of Neptun on Wednesday, where he met Romania's President Traian Basescu.
In a joint press conference, Mr Bush said he "strongly believed" Croatia, Albania and Macedonia should be able to join Nato as full members.
He added that Membership Action Plans should be extended to Ukraine and Georgia, and strongly supported calls by Montenegro and Bosnia-Hercegovina for
"intensified dialogue" on membership. "We ought to open the door to closer cooperation with Serbia," he also said.
He also urged Nato allies to send more troops to Afghanistan.
Open door
Earlier, Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told the BBC he supported membership for the former Soviet states.
"There's no way that the door will be locked for Ukraine and Georgia," he said.
"The Nato Treaty very clearly states that European democracies fulfilling their criteria for Nato membership are welcome."
Mr de Hoop Scheffer said he understood Russian concerns but added that the "final decision will be taken by the allies and not by anybody else".
The three-day summit of leaders from the 26-nation alliance is due to start in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, later.
It is being billed as the most important in the alliance's 59-year history.
Nato enlargement and efforts to rally support for the Nato-led force in Afghanistan are the topics expected to dominate the agenda.
Mr Bush also spoke of his forthcoming talks with outgoing Russian president Vladimir Putin - whom he will meet at the summit, and again at private talks in the
Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi at the weekend.
The US leader said he would make clear to Mr Putin that "the Cold War is over and Russia is not our enemy".
"This is a good chance for me to sit down and have yet another heart-to-heart with him," he said.
"I call it an opportunity to sit down and have a good frank discussion again."