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Moscow to keep tight grip on Georgia
Russian forces manned a checkpoint on the road into Georgia's main Black Sea port on Saturday, signalling the Kremlin's intention to keep a tight grip on Georgia's heartland despite Western criticism.
- Reuters
- Published: 23:47 August 23, 2008
Poti: Russian forces manned a checkpoint on the road into Georgia's main Black Sea port yesterday, signalling the Kremlin's intention to keep a tight grip on Georgia's heartland despite Western criticism.
Georgian forces were once again controlling the country's biggest East-West highway, and a large column of Russian tanks and armoured cars leaving a town near the Black Sea have been seen as evidence of Russia's promised pullback.
But the focus was shifting to the buffer zones stretching deep inside Georgia where Russia has said its troops will now maintain a permanent presence.
The Kremlin says it must stay on to prevent further bloodshed, but Georgia and its Western allies says the zones will give Russia a stranglehold over a country that lies on a transit route for energy exports from the Caspian Sea.
"My view is that the buffer zones are against the spirit of the ceasefire agreement," Alexander Stubb, Finland's foreign minister and chairman of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, told a Finnish broadcaster.
People in Poti, Georgia's main Black Sea port, said they could see 20 soldiers at a Russian checkpoint at the entrance to the town, 100 metres back from the road.
Up to 1,000 people gathered to protest against the Russian presence. "Why do they want to take control of Poti? They do not have such a right," said 60-year-old Roland Silagava. "Maybe they want to grab Poti from us. While we are still alive we will not allow them to stay here. If they were our friends they would not do this."
The conflict between Russia and pro-Western Georgia has left the United States, Nato and European Union groping for a response. Beyond freezing Nato's contacts with Russia, the West looks to have little influence over energy powerhouse Russia.
Patrols
Georgia's busiest port for oil and oil products is to the south in Batumi, but Poti can load up to 100,000 barrels per day of oil products, which arrive by rail from Azerbaijan. Poti is also a major gateway for merchandise bound not only for Georgia but for other Caucasus republics and Central Asia.
In Moscow, a senior defence official said Russian troops would patrol Poti, even though it lies just outside the "zone of responsibility" Russia says is covered by its peacekeeping mandate in Georgia.
Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the Russian military's General Staff, told reporters those patrols were in line with a ceasefire deal brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"Should we sit behind the fence? What use would we be then? Georgian forces will drive around in Hummers, move munitions around in trucks, and are we supposed to just count them?" he said after a news briefing.
He said he had reports the Georgian military, crushed in the week-long war with Russia, was re-arming and planning special forces operations.
Hundreds were killed and tens of thousands displaced in the fighting that erupted on August 7-8. Moscow sent in troops after Georgia tried to retake its separatist South Ossetia region. Across Georgia on Saturday, Russian troops were pulling back but they left pockets of men and weapons inside the buffer zones.
Moscow (AFP) A top Russian general yesterday rejected Western criticism of the Russian withdrawal from Georgia, saying that troops were in full compliance with a French-brokered peace plan.
"All activities of the Russian peacekeeping contingent are based on the six principles that were signed in agreement by the presidents of Russia and France," said General Anatoly Nogovitsyn.
Russia plans to station 500 troops beyond the separatist zones as part of what it has described as a peacekeeping force.
The general also warned the US that Russia could boost its presence in Georgia if it decides to help Tbilisi rebuild its military forces.
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