About warships in backyards and a six point plan
Posted by: irinaforden on: September 9, 2008
photo by Jeffery Stone
Sept.8, 2008
Earlier today – Sept.8, President of France Nicolas Sarkozy (currently a head of EU) together with EU Secretary-General (also a head of NATO) Javier Solana, President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso and France’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Bernard Kouchner visited Moscow and Tbilisi in hopes of finding a solution to a prolonged ongoing military conflict between Russia and Georgia and also hoping to finally completely secure all points of a ceasefire agreement (six point plan) with Russian side.
Since the conflict broke Russia continued to keep number of troops in a certain parts of Georgian territory way beyond borders with South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Today, it seems, the deal finally has been reached, I hope it lasts.
© Communauté européenne, 2008 | Moscow
Dmitri Medvedev, Nicolas Sarkozy and José Manuel Barroso
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev confirmed at an earlier press conference today that the agreement will take effect immediately. Russia is also asking EU negotiators together with N. Sarkozy to assure that Georgian side to follow it’s share of obligations.
It was emphasized by Russian side that it is ready to pull out of Georgia it’s military contingent (peace keepers) from 5 military posts established few weeks ago along the line from Poti to Senaki (towns in Georgia) with a maximum deadline of 7 days, providing no aggression is taken during this time by the Georgian side against Abkhazia.
Complete pull out of Russian forces from areas neighboring South Ossetia and Abkhazia to the place where these forces were before the latest armed conflict began on Aug.7 will take effect within 10 days after the deployment of the ” international mechanisms in these zones, including at least 200 observers from EU”, will be established in a region no later than Oct. 1 of this year.
UN and OSCE international observers will be closely monitoring the situation within the region and, as Russia demands, there should be no corrections applied to an earlier signed ceasefire agreement and no change of a positioning of forces in a region.
Complete return of Georgian forces to their military bases should be finished by Oct. 1 of this year too.
Visit of EU team members to Tbilisi w/ M. Saakashvili
As it was admitted today by Russian officials, both – EU and Russia differ on the subject of recognition of independence of a South Ossetia and Abkhazia, official recognition of the two breakaway regions by Moscow was condemned by EU earlier in August.
Although European Union politicians were very pessimistic about the success of today’s visit and the positive outcome of negotiations it seems that the ground was finally broken. However N. Sarkozy’s attempt to persuade Russian government to reverse it’s recognition of independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia was met with immediate and abrupt straightaway denial.
The talks with Kremlin didn’t go quite smoothly – there are circulating rumors that at some point Sarkozy threatened to walk out of the heated talks with Russian officials.
As it was stated by the Russian side there is no way Russia will reverse the decision about recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia back and that is final.
N. Sarkozy did not continue “to press” the issue further.
Additional talks about the details of how to establish secure and peaceful environment in the region will be held in Geneva on Oct. 15. of this year, although preliminary discussions will be taking place starting already this month.
In a meantime Venezuela and Russia just announced that it will hold a joint military exercises in the Caribbean waters in mid-November, as it was called by one of the CNN reporters – “in the US backyard“.
Venezuela is said to be prepared to receive the Russian Navy’s ships and planes and also a nuclear powered missile cruiser “Pyotr Velikiy” (Peter The Great) for exercises in November.
Venezuela’s Ministry of Communications confirmed the news. Allegedly, 4 Russian warships, plus a missile cruiser “Pyotr Velikiy” and 1,000 marines from Russia’s Northern Fleet would take part in joint exercises with the Venezuelan Navy.
The decision to conduct Russian-Venezuelan naval exercises was adopted at the meeting between Russia and Venezuela in July, according to Russian sources.
In August Russia blamed NATO repeatedly for escalating the situation in the Black Sea region (Russia’s longtime backyard). NATO denied the accusations claiming it’s ships were in the region to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia.
Seven U.S. and other NATO warships, have entered the Black Sea region in a last few weeks and Russia suspects that some of the ships brought military cargoes to rebuild Georgia’s armed forces.
Few days ago Russia’s President D.Medvedev referred to this situation by saying – “I wonder how they would feel if we dispatched humanitarian aid to the tornado-hit Caribbean region using our navy.”
US was denying the allegations done by Russian government about bringing into the region via Black Sea military aid to restore fallen Georgian military infrastructure. Earlier in August Pentagon promised to restore Georgian military capabilities, claim which later was denied by both Pentagon and a White House.
On the same day – Sept.3, International Monetary Fund (IMF) also announced that it had reached an agreement to provide Georgia a financial support – $750 million loan package. IMF Executive Board will consider the proposed agreement in mid-September.
by Irina Forden
Important notice – all images and video acquired with permission and is a subject to copyrights
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