Georgia slams Russian troop move ahead of NATO Russia talks
Georgia accused Russia of military aggression Wednesday over its plans to send more peacekeepers to two Georgian rebel regions, as the tensions were set to top the agenda of NATO Russia talks.
"It's hard to believe that this is being done for the purposes of peacekeeping, it's rather the beginning of full scale military aggression," Georgia's top diplomat, David Bakradze, told AFP.
His remarks came after Russia's defence ministry announced Tuesday an increase in peacekeeping forces to Abkhazia and South Ossetia in response to what it called aggressive moves by pro-Western Georgia.
Bakradze accused Russia of strengthening "de facto control on the ground" in Abkhazia in the last three months and establishing direct ties with the local authorities, which "questions Georgia's jurisdiction".
The Russian peacekeeping announcement only fuelled problems, said President Mikheil Saakashvili's new "special representative", who resigned as foreign minister last week.
"The Georgian side, as the host country, should be notified in advance and there should be consent from Georgia on any troop deployment, including peacekeepers. We have not been notified," he said.
"Peacekeeping is not strengthened by unilateral steps," he told AFP by telephone during a trip to Brussels.
Russia has peacekeepers in the regions under an agreement with Georgia from the 1990s following wars in which separatists broke away and established close ties with Moscow.
The Russian defence ministry, which accused Georgia of massing troops near the rebel areas, did not say how many extra soldiers were being sent, but said that 15 new observation posts would be set up on the front line in Abkhazia.
Around 2,000 Russians serve there and a further 1,000 in South Ossetia.
As the rhetoric escalated, a NATO official said that neither Russia nor Georgia had informed the military alliance of any plans to move their forces, as they would normally be expected to.
"Nothing has been notified," the official said, on condition of anonymity, ahead of regular talks between NATO and Russian ambassadors at the military alliance's headquarters in Brussels.
Under a key Soviet-era arms pact, Moscow could be expected to notify NATO nations of any troop movements, as it has continued to do despite freezing the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty in December.
Georgia, for its part, is striving to become a NATO member and the 26-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization confirmed at a summit this month that Tbilisi would one day join its ranks.
"We're not going to move troops," Bakradze said, adding that the UN mission monitoring Georgia and Abhkazia, UNOMIG, "verifies everything" in terms of military deployments.
"If there is something on our side, it will immediately be known," he said.
In a statement on April 21, UNOMIG said that its monitors "did not observe anything to substantiate reports of a build-up of forces on either side."
Ahead of the NATO-Russia talks Wednesday, the alliance official said: "I'm sure that this issue will come up."
The official said NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer had already discussed the problem in bilateral talks with Russia's ambassador in Brussels, Dmitry Rogozin.
At a meeting on Monday, NATO ambassadors described Moscow's recent rhetoric on the possible use of its forces as: "at the very least unhelpful."
"I do hope that allies will be principled and tough in raising all the questions with Russia today," Bakradze said.
The ambassadors, who sit on the North Atlantic Council, have decided to travel to Georgia in the coming months, Georgian and NATO officials have confirmed.
AFP
