Georgia: Putin says US to blame

2008-08-29 07:41

Moscow - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Thursday of instigating the fighting in Georgia and said he suspects a connection to the US presidential campaign - a contention the White House dismissed as "patently false".

In a decision he said was unrelated to unravelling Russia-US ties, Putin also ordered that 19 American poultry producers be barred from selling their products to Russia. He said the unnamed companies ignored demands that they correct alleged deficiencies.

Putin, the former president and architect of an assertive foreign policy that has stoked East-West tension, suggested in an interview with CNN that there was an American presence amid the combat with a potential domestic US political motive.

"We have serious grounds to think that there were US citizens right in the combat zone" during Russia's war with the US-allied ex-Soviet republic, he said the interview broadcast on state-run Russian television. "And if that's so, if that is confirmed, it's very bad. It's very dangerous."

Putin's acid attack on the United States came as Moscow's bid to redraw Georgia's borders hit an obstacle among its Asian allies who refused to recognise the two Russian-backed breakaway regions of Georgia. France, meanwhile, said the European Union is considering sanctions against Russia for its conduct in the Caucasus.

Putin said that Russia had hoped the US would restrain Georgia, which Moscow accuses of starting the war by attacking South Ossetia on August 7. Instead, he suggested the US encouraged the nation's leadership to try to rein in the separatist region by force.

"The American side in fact armed and trained the Georgian army," Putin said. "Why hold years of difficult talks and seek complex compromise solutions in interethnic conflicts? It's easier to arm one side and push it into the murder of the other side, and it's over.

US passport

"It seems like an easy solution. In reality it turns out that it's not always so," he said.

The US has close ties with the Georgian government and has trained Georgian units. The Pentagon has said that the US had about 130 trainers in Georgia when the fighting erupted earlier this month, including a few dozen civilians who were all working to prepare the Georgian forces for deployment to Iraq.

But Russian officials have made statements aimed to convey the idea that Americans may have directly supported Georgia's offensive.

At a briefing on Tuesday, the deputy chief of Russian military general staff, Col Gen Anatoly Nogovitsyn, showed off a colour copy of what he said was a US passport found in a basement in a village in South Ossetia among items that belonged to Georgian forces.

"We found a passport for Michael Lee White," Nogovitsyn said. "He's a Texan."

The US Embassy in Georgia said it had no information on the matter.

In an interview with France 24 to be aired on Friday, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said there were no American "commanders or even advisers" in the conflict zone. He said the conflict had nothing to do with the US, but "the aggression of the Russians".

'Patently false'

Putin appeared to link claims of an American presence amid the combat with a potential domestic US political motive.

"If my guesses are confirmed, then that raises the suspicion that somebody in the United States purposefully created this conflict with the aim of aggravating the situation and creating an advantage ... for one of the candidates in the battle for the post of US president."

Putin did not name a party, a candidate or provide evidence to back his claims. But some pro-Kremlin Russian politicians have argued that US Republicans hoped the Georgia fighting would stir support for their presidential candidate John McCain, a strong Kremlin critic who has tried to make security issues a strong suit.

White House press secretary Dana Perino called Putin's contentions "patently false". She said "it also sounds like his defence officials who said they believe this to be true are giving him really bad advice".

She added: "To suggest that the United States orchestrated this on behalf of a political candidate just sounds not rational."

Perino said Russia is facing the consequences of a diminished global reputation and that "there will be other" consequences as well. She refused to say what they would be and said there is no timetable.

- AP