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U.S. Chases Rocket in the UN
Russia has blocked the resolution on the August 6 missile incident in Georgia introduced by the United States into the UN Security Council. The U.S. promises that the topic will be reintroduced in the council and has proposed that international monitoring be imposed on the Roksky Tunnel and the number of OSCE observers be increased in all of South Ossetia. Thus, the U.S. is using the incident to advance a settlement of the conflict in the region.
A closed session of the Security Council devoted to the missile that was dropped in the Gori District of Georgia was held on Thursday evening. The U.S. introduced a resolution on the incident. Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin then stated that “Russian experts have just arrived in Tbilisi and it would be premature and irresponsible for the Security Council to make a statement on the topic.” therefore, the resolution was not even brought to a vote. A U.S. spokesman at the UN said that the topic would be reintroduced.
The U.S embassy in Tbilisi has called on the world community to pay attention to the missile incident and said that Washington will increase its efforts to find a peaceful settlement to the dispute in South Ossetia, with the region becoming an autonomous part of Georgia within Georgia's internationally recognized borders. It explained the need for monitoring of the Roksky tunnel and OSCE observers as concern over conditions in the region in general. The tunnel is the main link between Russia and South Ossetia. Georgia has repeated accused Russia of providing arms to South Ossetia through the tunnel.
Chairman of the South Ossetian Committee on Information and the Press Irina Gagloeva told Kommersant in Tskhinvali, The U.S. and Georgia have seized on the missile incident and now they want to close the Roksky Tunnel to cut our republic off from Russia… We can live without water, but we won't last long without Russia support. As long as a single Ossetian is alive, no Georgian or American will get anywhere near the Roksky Tunnel!”
A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman told Kommersant that “There is an internationally-recognized format for settlement and changing anything in the zone of conflict by the decision of one country is a useless activity. Without the agreement of Russia and South Ossetia, it is impossible.”
On August 14, Georgia announced that the missile incident had been investigated by an independent commission of representative of the U.S., Sweden, Latvia and Lithuania. It did not reveal who authorized the commission and how it was formed. The next day, Georgian Interior Minister Gela Bezhuashvili gave journalists copies of the commission's conclusions, which agreed fully with the Georgian account of the event. Tbilisi then demanded that the UN Security Council examine the incident.
A Russian delegation of Defense and Interior Ministry officials met with Georgian Deputy Defense Minister Batu Kutelia yesterday morning. Both sides remained intransigent in their views, however. At the site of the missile's fall in the village of Tsitelubani later in the day, a quarrel broke out between head of the Georgian peacekeeping mission Gen. Mamuka Kurashvili and members of the Russian delegation. The Georgian Defense Ministry called possibilities for consultation with Russia over the incident exhausted.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 18, 2007
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