Russia moves toward recognising Georgian separatist regions
05:53 AEST Thu Aug 21 2008
ago
By Christopher Boian
Moscow has moved closer to recognising the independence of Georgian separatist regions, escalating a bruising international row over Russia's assault on the ex-Soviet republic.
Russia also fired off a blistering response to a US-Poland missile defence deal signed earlier, saying it would push Europe into a new arms race and was proof of a US drive to alter the strategic balance in Washington's favour.
In Abkhazia, a strategically placed Black Sea province of Georgia, the separatist parliament and president issued an appeal asking Russia to recognise their independence, an AFP correspondent said.
The leader of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, told Interfax news agency that his separatist region would also issue a similar appeal soon. Both rebel regions announced plans for pro-independence demonstrations on Thursday.
The deputy speaker of the Russian parliament's upper house, the Federation Council, announced an emergency session Monday to consider recognising Abkhazia and also South Ossetia - both under control of additional Russian troops since last week.
"The Federation Council is ready to recognise the independent status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia if that is what the people of these republics want," Interfax news agency quoted council speaker Sergei Mironov as saying.
Recognition by Moscow of the two regions would deal pro-Western Georgia a huge blow, dramatically deepening a diplomatic crisis caused by Russia's huge military incursion.
Speaking in the state of Florida, US President George W Bush repeated a demand that Russia pull its troops out of Georgia and said "the world must stand for freedom" in the ex-Soviet republic.
Russian troops poured into Georgia on August 8 to repel an attempt by Georgian forces to retake control of South Ossetia. They subsequently occupied swathes of Georgia.
President Dmitry Medvedev has promised to complete a withdrawal, as agreed in a French-brokered plan, by the end of Friday.
However, there was no evidence on Wednesday of a significant pullout, reporters in Georgia and in South Ossetia said.
South Ossetia and Abkhazia broke from Georgia during fighting in the early 1990s and tens of thousands of ethnic Georgians were expelled from their homes.
Russia has supported both regions for years, but not recognised their independence claims, partly for fear of fuelling similar movements in Chechnya and other parts of its multi-ethnic North Caucasus region.
Moscow was infuriated by the Western push to make the Serb province of Kosovo an independent country, regardless of Serbia's objections, and analysts say the Kremlin might use the Georgian separatist problem to strike back.
Mironov said only Medvedev could take a final decision. Medvedev says Russia would "unambiguously" back any decision made by the people of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Georgia, supported by the United States and leading EU countries, says it will refuse to accept violations of its territorial integrity.
In New York, Russia circulated its own draft UN resolution on the crisis in Georgia after blocking another draft proposed by France the previous day on the grounds that it was one-sided.
Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin described Moscow's draft as "a verbatim reiteration" of the ceasefire agreement negotiated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Moscow.
That accord specifies that combat troops must pull out but an unspecified number of Russian soldiers can remain as "peacekeepers." There is little clarity on their mandate or their scope of operations.
General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of Russia's General Staff, said Russian troops were fortifying a "buffer zone" around South Ossetia with eight military posts and a no-fly rule for Georgian aviation.
Revising a previous death toll downwards by 10, he said 64 Russian military personnel had been killed and 323 wounded in the conflict with Georgia.
Separatist authorities in South Ossetia, meanwhile, said that 1,492 residents had been killed in the fighting. Georgian authorities say the death toll there was far lower.
The State Department announced separately that Turkey had approved transit of two US navy ships into the Black Sea to transport humanitarian relief supplies to Georgia.
The vessels were to include two US Navy ships and a US Coast Guard cutter, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.
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