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US Navy warship sails into Georgia with aid
A US Navy warship carrying humanitarian aid anchored at the Georgian port of Batumi on Sunday, sending a strong signal
- AP
- Published: 18:06 August 24, 2008
Aboard the USS McFaul: A US Navy warship carrying humanitarian aid anchored at the Georgian port of Batumi on Sunday, sending a strong signal of support to an embattled ally.
In central Georgia, an oil train exploded and caught fire, sending plumes of black smoke into the air.
A Georgian official said the train hit a land mine and blamed the explosion on Russian forces, who withdrew from the area Friday. the train was carrying crude oil from Kazakhstan to a Georgian Black Sea port.
The Russian Defense Ministry declined to comment.
Russia pulled the bulk of its troops and tanks from its small southern neighbor Friday after a brief but intense war, but built up its forces in and around two separatist regions - South Ossetia and Abkhazia - and left other military posts deep inside Georgia.
The guided missile destroyer USS McFaul, loaded with 72 pallets of humanitarian aid, is the first of five American ships scheduled to arrive this week.
A US official said the American ship anchored in Batumi, Georgia's main oil port on the Black Sea, because of concerns about the state of Georgian port of Poti.
Russian troops still hold positions near Poti, and AP journalists there have reported on Russians looting the area.
At dockside in Batumi, with the McFaul anchored offshore, US Navy officials in crisp white uniforms were met Sunday by Georgian officials, including Defense Minister David Kezerashvili.
Local children gave the Americans wine and flowers.
The commander of the five-ship US task force, Navy Capt. John Moore, downplayed the significance of a destroyer bringing aid. "We really are here on a humanitarian mission," he said.
The deputy chief of Russia's general staff suggested that the arrival of the McFaul and other Nato members ships would increase tensions in the Black Sea. Russia shares the sea with NATO members Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria as well as Georgia and Ukraine, whose pro-Western president also is leading a drive for NATO membership.
"I don't think such a buildup will foster the stabilization of the atmosphere in the region," Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn as saying on Saturday.
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