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Russia agrees to pull out of key areas of Georgia
The Associated PressPublished: September 9, 2008
MOSCOW: Russia's president pledged Monday to withdraw troops from key areas of Georgia after 200 European Union monitors deploy later this month as part of a revised cease-fire agreement.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili cautiously endorsed the deal, but insisted any final settlement with Russia must respect his country's territorial integrity. He made clear he still considers the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia part of his country.
"There is no way Georgia will ever give up a piece of its sovereignty, a piece of its territory," Saakashvili said after meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who brokered the latest deal.
The short war between Georgia and Russia — which began when Georgian forces attacked South Ossetia followed by Russia invading and routing Georgia's military — has turned into a critical event in the post-Cold War world as Russia asserts its new economic and military clout and the West struggles to respond.
Georgia and Western nations have complained Russia failed to withdraw troops and follow through on other earlier pledges in an Aug. 12 cease-fire agreement.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said 200 European Union monitors would deploy to regions surrounding South Ossetia and Abkhazia by next month. After that, Russian troops would pull out of those regions by Oct. 11 to a line that preceded the last month's fighting.
He said Russian troops would pull out of the Black Sea port of Poti and nearby areas in the next seven days, but only if Georgia signed a pledge to not use force against Abkhazia. Georgia had complained that the presence of Russian troops in Poti — located dozens of miles away from the fighting in South Ossetia — was a blatant violation of the cease-fire.
Sarkozy acknowledged that one of the sticking points of the talks was Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent from Georgia. Both areas have had de facto independence since breaking away from Georgian government control in the early 1990s.
"It is not up to Russia to recognize unilaterally the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. There are international rules. These should be respected," Sarkozy said.
Nicaragua was the only other country aside from Russia to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia's independence.
__Medvedev said Russia would not revisit its decision.
"Our decision is irrevocable. Two new states have come into existence," Medvedev said. "This is a reality which all our partners, including our EU partners, will have to reckon with."__
Sarkozy flew to the Georgian capital Tbilisi and met Saakashvili after conferring for more than four hours with Medvedev in Moscow in an effort to salvage the Aug. 12 cease-fire.
Russian troops on Monday blocked international aid convoys and several European ambassadors from traveling to villages beyond Russian checkpoints in Georgia.
Still, Russia's pledge of troop withdrawal appeared to be a concession to international demands to fulfill promises made as part of the cease-fire deal last month.
Following the announcement of the agreement, Medvedev lashed out at Saakashvili, a U.S. ally, saying he had received "a blessing, either in the form of a direct order or silent approval" from the United States to launch an "idiotic action" against South Ossetia.
"People died and now all of Georgia must pay for that," Medvedev said.
Adding to the uncertainty of the situation was the stipulation that any Georgian forces remaining near the separatist regions return to their bases and barracks by Oct. 1 before a full Russian withdrawal could happen.
The deal calls for international talks on refugees and the region's stability as a whole to be held beginning Oct. 15 in Geneva.
"I believe this accord is an accord that represents a maximum of what we could have done," Sarkozy told reporters.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/09/09/news/Georgia-Russia.php
Russia promises full pullout from Georgia within a month
20:40 | 08/ 09/ 2008
MOSCOW, September 8 (RIA Novosti) - The French president said on Monday that Russia has promised to pull all troops out of Georgia, but not South Ossetia or Abkhazia, within one month.
Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking after talks with his counterpart Dmitry Medvedev near Moscow, also said that under the new agreement Russia has pledged to withdraw from observation posts located between the Georgian towns of Poti and Senaki within a week.
He said if the new plan is fully implemented, "there is no reason why meetings between Russia and Europe on a new strategic partnership deal, postponed from September, cannot be resumed in October."
The EU postponed partnership talks in protest against Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states and its military presence in Georgia, which followed Tbilisi's August 8 attack on South Ossetia.
Medvedev said Russia will not go back on its decision to recognize the regions.
"We made this choice ourselves. It is final and irreversible," he said.
However, he said international discussions on the provinces' status would go ahead, as stipulated in a peace deal brokered by Sarkozy last month.
"International discussions stipulated in point six of the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan signed on August 12, 2008, will begin on October 15, 2008, in Geneva," he said.
Medvedev also said Russia has drafted an agreement on establishing diplomatic relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
"There will also be other agreements, under which we will provide them with economic, humanitarian and military support, no one should be in any doubt about this," he said.
Medvedev said Russia's full withdrawal from Georgia will come not more than 10 days after the European Union deploys at least 200 observers in the 'buffer zone' near South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which under the new agreement is set to happen by October 1.
However, before the pullout takes place, Russia must receive from Georgia "legally binding documents on non-use of force against Abkhazia and South Ossetia," Medvedev said.
Sarkozy said he had handed the Russian leader a letter from Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili pledging not to use force against the regions.
Medvedev also rejected accusations from Western powers that Russia has broken its pledges made in the six-point peace plan.
"I believe Russia is fully implementing the plan. However, I cannot unfortunately say the same of the Georgian side."
He said Georgia is actively working to restore its attacking potential, and is being aided by the U.S. He also accused Washington of complicity in Georgia's ground and air offensive against South Ossetia, which claimed the lives of a large number of civilians.
Saakashvili "decided to solve an old, complex problem, with historical elements, in one movement, through the use of military force. In this, he received the blessing of one country," Medvedev said.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080908/116626011.html
Medvedev Agrees to Withdrawal Plan
09 September 2008
By Nabi Abdullaev, Anatoly Medetsky / Staff Writers
MAIENDORF CASTLE, Moscow Region — Russia has agreed to remove its troops from "buffer zones" in Georgia within 10 days of the deployment of additional EU monitors.
At a news conference following four hours of talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Medvedev said the total withdrawal from the zones surrounding the separatist republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia would follow the arrival of at least 200 European Union monitors, to arrive no later than Oct. 1.
Sarkozy, who holds the rotating EU presidency and helped broker the six-point cease-fire agreement between Moscow and Tbilisi last month, said the Russian military would also dismantle its checkpoints around the Black Sea port of Poti within the next seven days.
"In one week, the checkpoints will be dismantled. In one month, Russian military forces will be outside Georgian territory, with the exception, naturally, of South Ossetia and Abkhazia," Sarkozy said.
Sarkozy, who was accompanied by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, met with Medvedev at the Maiendorf Castle presidential residence, outside Moscow, to address the EU's complaint that the presence of Russian soldiers in Georgia proper contradicted the provisions of the cease-fire agreement.
Russian troops rolled into Georgia on Aug. 8 after turning back an attempt by the Georgian army to take control of the separatist Moscow-backed republic of South Ossetia by force.
The international outcry that followed the establishment of a military presence in Georgia proper intensified later in August, when Moscow recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.
Only one country, Nicaragua, followed Russia's suit and recognized the two republics last week.
Visibly content with the results of the talks, Medvedev said afterward that international organizations should start treating the two republics as independent states.
After Sarkozy replied that it was not Russia's place to determine Georgia's borders, Medvedev simply exchanged smiles with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who stood nearby as Medvedev briefed reporters.
"If the international discussion begins at the UN in Geneva, then there is something to discuss," Sarkozy said.
His comments echoed EU criticism that the recognition of independence for the two republics was a violation of Georgia's territorial integrity. An emergency meeting last week of European leaders failed, however, to produce any measures against Moscow other than the suspension of negotiations for a new EU-Russia accord.
And the outcome of Monday's talks took even that measure off the table, as Sarkozy said Monday that he saw no reason why the talks couldn't resume if Moscow follows up on the pullout agreement.
Ria-Novosti / Reuters
Sarkozy walking Monday with Medvedev at his Maiendorf Castle residence.
A government source who took part in the negotiations, speaking on condition of anonymity after the talks, told The Moscow Times that the Kremlin had been seriously concerned about the resumptions of talks on the accord, an issue the had EU tied to the outcome of the talks.
Some kind of accommodation appeared increasingly likely in the run-up to the meeting, as Russian and EU officials sent signals that they were willing to accede to at least some of the other side's demands.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said just before the two presidents sat down for talks that an independent EU monitoring mission would "lead to an unnecessary fragmentation" of the international monitoring efforts currently carried out by the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
But he said increased involvement by the OSCE, of which Russia is a member, was an option.
For its part, the EU was prepared to take an increased role in monitoring efforts under the auspices of either the OSCE or the UN, or to act on its own, Solana said in an interview with Kommersant of the eve of the trip.
Sarkozy, Solana and Barroso flew on Monday evening to Tbilisi, where they were to discuss the outcome of the talks with Medvedev with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Tbilisi continued over the weekend to denounce the continued presence of Russian troops on its territory and complain of violations of its airspace by Russian military aircraft.
Two jets flew a mission over the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali and the village of Shatili in Georgia proper on Sunday morning, the Georgian Foreign Ministry said in a statement released Sunday. The statement suggested that the jets were conducting a reconnaissance mission.
The ministry also said the Russian military was reinforcing, rather than vacating, its checkpoints the Black Sea port of Poti, which was visited Saturday by the USS Mount Whitney, flagship of the U.S. Navy's 6th Fleet.
One of the checkpoints, located even further into Georgia than the seven-kilometer buffer zone to which the Russian military has claimed it is entitled, was reinforced Sunday by 5 armored personnel carriers and about 50 additional troops, while another checkpoint nearby was reinforced with one APC, another military vehicle and about 10 soldiers, the ministry said.
Saakashvili remained adamant Sunday that South Ossetia and Abkhazia would remain part of Georgia, saying the West would help his country regain control of the regions.
"Our territorial integrity will be restored, I am more convinced of this than ever," Saakashvili said in a televised appearance on Sunday, The Associated Press reported. "This will not be an easy process, but now this is a process between an irate Russia and the rest of the world."
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/600/42/370754.htm
