Defiant Russia still in Georgia
2008-08-23 12:19
Tbilisi - Russian forces were on Saturday still deployed deep inside Georgia but Moscow brushed aside Western accusations it was failing to obey the terms of a ceasefire agreement.
Russia withdrew tanks, artillery and hundreds of troops from the heart of Georgia on Friday, saying it had now fulfilled all obligations under a French-brokered ceasefire plan aimed at ending the two-week-old conflict.
But Russian troops were still present around the western Georgian port of Poti and also controlled a checkpoint 10km north of the key city of Gori, AFP correspondents said.
Britain, France and the United States have already urged further withdrawals but a top Russian general rejected the Western criticism.
"All activities of the Russian peacekeeping contingent are based on the six principles that were signed in agreement by the presidents of Russia and France," said General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff in Moscow.
He said Russian troops would patrol and keep control over Poti, Georgia's main commercial port.
Russian troops first poured into Georgia on August 8 to repel a Georgian assault on the breakaway region of South Ossetia, smashing the country's small US-trained army.
They then fanned out through Abkhazia, another pro-Moscow breakaway region, and far into the Georgian heartland.
Two Russian armoured vehicles and lorries were on Saturday still controlling a checkpoint in the village of Karaleti outside Gori on the road to the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, an AFP correspondent reported.
The troops, whose uniform was marked with the insignia of peacekeepers, were not letting traffic further north without Russian military accreditation.
Four tanks
Russian soldiers backed up by four tanks were still in place on a bridge on the road heading from the western city of Poti to the city of Senaki further west and Batumi to the south.
Moscow retains full control of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and says it also has the right to establish an "area of responsibility" far beyond.
"They are still in Poti and there are no signs of their intention to withdraw from there, which is obviously the violation of ceasefire," Georgian interior ministry spokesperson Shota Utiashvili told AFP.
Even though Georgian police on Friday retook control of Gori, Moscow claims the right to patrol a sweeping area taking in stretches of the main east-west highway, a trade artery that links the capital Tbilisi to Poti.
The ex-Soviet republic's Western backers told Moscow overnight that it was violating the peace accord.
US President George W. Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy agreed during a telephone conversation that "Russia is not in compliance and that Russia needs to come into compliance now," a White House spokesperson said.
Bush and Sarkozy called on Russia to "continue and complete" its withdrawal from Georgia, a statement from the French presidency added.
The speedy military victory over Georgia, which is pressing for membership in Nato, stunned Western powers and since then the United States and Nato have ratcheted up pressure on Russia.