Saakashvili Signed It
// Russia, the EU and Georgia failed to come to an agreement over the peace plan
Monday night, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili signed addenda to the Medvedev-Sarkozy peace plan, which the EU delegation had brought him from Moscow. However, Tbilisi interprets the document so that international monitors are eligible to reside not only in the buffer zone round South Ossetia and Abkhazia but also in the territories of the two republics. Nicolas Sarkozy spoke in favor of this position on behalf of the EU. Meanwhile Russian Foreign Office Chief Sergey Lavrov assured Kommersant it is only Russia’s troops that will provide security in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It’s not the only divergence in the views of politicians which can facilitate the realization of the recently reached agreements.
Europe’s special diplomatic mission including French President Nicolas Sarkozy, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, and High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the European Union Javier Solana arrived in Tbilisi airport at 11 p.m., Monday. The day before the “Euro three” had spent some four hours discussing the addenda to the Medvedev-Sarkozy peace plan with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and yesterday they had to convince the Georgian President to sign the document coordinated with Moscow. It didn’t take them much time – soon after midnight the emissaries stood with Mikhail Saakashvili on the lawn in front of his residence giving a joint press-conference.
“The document coordinated with the EU help and signed by me is a step forward. But there is a way to go still,” Mikhail Saakashvili stated. “The Russian troops deployed in Georgia are not peace-keeping – they have occupied almost a third of the country. But Georgia will never cede its territories keeping on with its peaceful struggle for the country’s unification.”
Mikhail Saakashvili told the press that he handed over to Nicolas Sarkozy the “proof that Georgia only responded to the actions of Russia, which started moving military equipment in South Ossetia before August 8”. A source of Kommersant with the Georgian Security Council said that, basing on the proof it collected, Tbilisi aims to urge that an international commission to investigate the developments in South Ossetia should be set up.
At the end of his address Mikhail Saakashvili suddenly took a sheet of paper out of his pocket and shook it in the air. “Nicolas Sarkozy and José Manuel Barroso signed this document reading that EU monitors will operate in Abkhazia as well as South Ossetia – not only in the territories round them,” the Georgian leader claimed in a triumphant tone. “Also, we’ll make all those people that impede this concede to the returning home of all Georgian refugees from Abkhazia and South Ossetia starting from 1992. The EU and the USA do have the mechanisms to achieve it.”
Nicolas Sarkozy agreed to interpret the recently signed agreement that way. “The mandate of international monitors to arrive in Georgia has been coordinated in the OSCE and the UN. They have the right to monitor any Georgian area including the zones of the South Ossetian and Abkhaz conflicts,” he stated. “Monitors will determine whether the conditions for refugees to return home have been created. It concerns both the refugees from the zone of the South Ossetian conflict, who had to escape in August and the refugees that were ousted from the territories since 1992.”
As to Russia, it has its own vision of the document. Yesterday Russian Foreign Office Chief Sergey Lavrov convened a press-conference in Moscow, where he explained the essence of the agreement. “The wording of the adopted document is to clear all questions regarding the location where OSCE monitors are going to be deployed. They will be deployed round South Ossetia,” he said. Answering a question of Kommersant, whether Russia intends to participate in monitoring missions, Sergey Lavrov said that it’s “not critical whether we’ll participate there. The key thing, in the view of Mr Lavrov, is that Russia’s troops are in control of both republics. “The security of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is provided by our contingent, which has been deployed that at request of the governments of the two republics,” the Minister assured Kommersant.
There is another matter that can complicate the talks about security guarantees in the region – the negotiations are to begin in Geneva on October 15. “The participants of these discussions are not mentioned in the document, but we have insisted that Abkhazia and South Ossetia should get to the negotiations table,” Sergey Lavrov added. At the same time the Foreign Minister told Kommersant that the Russian Federation won’t take back its decision to recognize the two republics: Dmitry Medvedev had brought it home to the European emissaries. It means that South Ossetia and Abkhazia are to be represented as independent states in Geneva. A source of Kommersant with the Georgian Foreign Office said that it’s unacceptable to Tbilisi.
This said, Russia, the EU and Georgia interpret the key provisions of the reached agreement differently a few hours later after it was signed. Interestingly, they started disputing the wording of the first Medvedev-Sarkozy peace plan only a few days after it was signed on August 12. The story of the latter shows that such discord can block the realization of the agreements.
&Russia accused the USA of violating commitments
Yesterday the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed its bewilderment over the fact that an agreement for cooperation with Russia in the peaceful atom sphere introduced in Congress for ratification was recalled. “We regard the decision of US President George W. Bush to recall from Congress the submitted-for-ratification Russian-American civil nuclear cooperation agreement as erroneous and politicized. We are also puzzled by the timing of the announcement of this decision,” the Ministry’s press-release says. The Ministry pointed out that the recall will be interpreted a sort of “punishment” or “restriction” to Russia. “We consider the attempts of Washington to impose on other countries its logic of action as a behavioral model in relations with Russia unacceptable likewise,” the Foreign Office stated. “We regard the actions of the US administration as an explicit breach of the commitments assumed by it, which deals a blow to our partner interaction and closes the road to mutually advantageous bilateral cooperation on many issues in the field of the peaceful atom,” it added.
The agreement was signed in May. The document was to lift nuclear fuel trade restrictions imposed in the cold war times, open the U.S. nuclear market to Russia and provide American companies with an access to Russia’s uranium fields.
Olga Berezintseva
Alexander Gabuev; Georgy Dvali, Tbilisi
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 10, 2008
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