Moscow delays Georgia pullout against Western criticism

Aug 20, 2008, 20:27 GMT

A Russian tank passes by a huge portrait of Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin as it passes through Tskhinvali, South Ossetia, Georgia 20 August 2008 as part of a convoy. EPA/MAXIM SHIPENKOV

Moscow on Wednesday was still delaying pulling its troops out of Georgia as Western criticism of the occupation intensified.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev promised his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy that all but a 500-strong contingent of peacekeepers would leave Georgian soil by Friday, but Russian troops appeared Wednesday to be digging into their positions in two Georgian enclaves.

Russian troops held checkpoints throughout Georgia's Gori region and were blocking official Georgian vehicles. Russian naval infantry were in control of Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti, and key rail, road, and oil networks crossing the former Soviet republic.

Rail transport between the capital Tbilisi and Georgia's Black Sea ports was paralysed due to a bridge destroyed earlier in the week by Russian combat engineers near the town Kaspi. Activity in Poti, Georgia's main seaport, had come to a complete halt.

Western criticism of the delayed pullout boiled over at the United Nations on Wednesday as Moscow blocked demands for an immediate and full withdrawal of its forces.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was quoted in the International Herald Tribune slamming Russia for not acting on repeated promises to pull out: 'We cannot accept this kind of blindness, not accepting international law.'

Moscow shot back at criticism by freezing all military cooperation with NATO on Wednesday after the alliance issued a strongly-worded rebuke of Russia's conduct in the bloody 10-day war over Georgia's separatist region of South Ossetia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov slammed NATO's statement as 'one-sided' and 'biased,' charging the alliances readiness to discuss membership for Georgia was a continuation of Cold War containment policy.

In this regard, US Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker expressed the opinion Wednesday that Georgia's conflict with Russia in its breakaway regions should not prevent the country from moving towards NATO membership.

'Remember when Germany became a member of NATO, it was a divided country. And it was the right thing to do to bring Germany in at that time, and it was the right thing to support German unification when we did,' he said.

For its part, Russia's parliament will meet in an emergency session Monday to consider recognition of the independence of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Abkhazia's parliament in a Wednesday vote requested Moscow's formal recognition. A Kremlin recognition of either Abkhazia or South Ossetia, both renegade Georgian provinces, would violate the terms of a ceasefire agreement ending the Ossetia war stipulating no revisions of Georgia's international borders.

Both rebel regions have held de facto autonomy since winning a war of succession from Georgia in the early 1990s. South Ossetians would like to unite with an ethnically-linked Russian district to the north, while Abkhazia is lobbying to be recognized as an independent country.

Deliberate moves by Moscow to tighten ties with the rebel governments of both regions in recent months severely aggravated tensions that exploded in the short bloody war in South Ossetia.

But Moscow's claims that its troops halted a Georgian genocide of the civilian population of 70,000 in South Ossetia seemed demolished on Wednesday as authorities released the first official lists of dead and injured since the start of fighting 10 days ago.

A Russian investigative committee in South Ossetia said 133 people have been registered killed in the conflict with Georgia. Ossetian officials had claimed the count was as highs 2,100 civilians.

Anna Neistat of rights organization Human Rights Watch said such 'exaggerated' counts had fueled ethnic revenge attacks against Georgian villages.

Thousands of Georgian civilians have fled South Ossetia in the aftermath of the war. Journalists in the region reported Wednesday bulldozers brought in by Russia's government were leveling ethnic Georgian villages.

Latest EU estimates put the number of Georgian refugees and people internally displaced by the conflict at 124,000. They are currently being hosted in 672 Georgian refugee centres.

The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Moreno Ocampo, confirmed reviewing the events in Georgia concerning the alleged commission of crimes under ICC jurisdiction.

In a statement released Wednesday, Ocampo said his office 'considers carefully all information relating to alleged crimes within its jurisdiction.'

Meanwhile, calm was returning to the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali, with the Russia-allied government there cancelling martial law, while the European Union said that the security situation in Georgia was 'improving day by day.'

The main concern however seemed to be the continued Russian presence.

Addressing a debate at the European Parliament, Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili said there was no sign of a Russian withdrawal.

'The military presence is not temporary, but pretty much solidified,' she said.