Georgia and Russia both broke law, war report says (Roundup)

Sep 30, 2009, 14:04 GMT

Brussels - Georgia broke international law by attacking the separatist zone of South Ossetia last August, but Russia broke the law by invading Georgia in response, an independent report into the conflict said on Wednesday.

'There is the question of whether the use of force by Georgia in South Ossetia ... was justifiable under international law. It was not,' the report, commissioned by the European Union and drawn up by veteran Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, said.

There is no evidence to support Georgia's claim that it only attacked the breakaway region because Russia had already sent troops to annex it, the report, a copy of which was seen by the German Press Agency dpa ahead of publication, said.

'There was no ongoing armed attack by Russia before the start of the Georgian operation,' it said.

The report was due to be released to the public later on Wednesday.

But Russia's response, which saw Russian tanks and aircraft attacking targets across much of Georgia, 'cannot be regarded as even remotely commensurate with the threat to Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia,' it said.

'It must be concluded that the Russian military action outside South Ossetia was essentially conducted in violation of international law,' it said.

And the attack by forces from Russia and the breakaway region of Abkhazia on the upper Kodori Valley - an area held by Georgia before the conflict - 'constituted an illegal use of force as prohibited by ... Article 2 (4) of the United Nations Charter,' the report said.

Russia's ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, who took delivery of the 1,200-page report, said that he had not read its 40-page executive summary in detail by the time he called a press conference in Brussels on the subject.

However, he said that 'from what I have managed to grasp, it provides an unequivocal answer to the main question, who started the war ... the Georgian massive shelling and attack.'

He rejected claims that Russian troops had broken the law by entering Georgian territory, invoking the international law on 'hot pursuit' of criminals.

And he stressed that the Russian government's 'conclusion is that the Russian reaction was indeed quite proportionate, swift and to the point.'

'I don't believe there is anything this report might say which would dramatically change that conclusion,' he said.

Georgia's EU ambassador, Salome Samadashvili, also called a briefing a few minutes after being handed the document.

While she also said that she had not had time to read it in full, she said that the report 'proves that Georgia came under invasion by a foreign state in violation of international law,' and that 'the pretexts (of that invasion) were blatant lies.'

She rejected the claim that Georgia had started the war, saying that 'the first shot was fired 20 years ago,' when fighting first broke out between Georgia and the Russian-backed separatists during the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The EU released a brief statement thanking Tagliavini for her work and saying that it 'hopes that (the report's) findings can contribute towards a better understanding of the origins and the course of last year's conflict.'

The bloc also re-stated its support for the idea that the two breakaway zones are legally part of Georgia. So far, only Russia, Nicaragua and Venezuela have recognized the rebel regions' independence.