標題:Russian trucks leave Georgia; no big pullout
Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:01am EDT
* Russian military column crosses from Georgia
* West stepping up pressure for Russian withdrawal
* Russian troops still digging in
* NATO says freezes contacts with Moscow
VERKHNY ZARAMAG, Russia, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Russian military trucks crossed
from Georgia back into Russia on Wednesday but there was no sign of the
large-scale, rapid pullout demanded by the West.
A Reuters correspondent near the Roki tunnel that links Russia with Georgia's
pro-Russian rebel province of South Ossetia said about 40 trucks covered with
tarpaulin crossed the frontier from midday.
"Some were obviously laden. Most of them seemed to be empty, riding high on
their suspension," he said. "And there was no sign of armoured vehicles or of
artillery."
A local official said no Russian armour had crossed in the night.
Western powers, working through the United Nations and NATO, have raised
pressure on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to speed a promised pullout
after two weeks of violent confrontation. Impatience is turning to scepticism
over delays.
"Three times Medvedev has said they are starting the withdrawal and they have
not," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was quoted in the
International Herald Tribune newspaper as saying. "We cannot accept this kind
of blindness, not accepting international law."
At the United Nations, Western powers pushed for a Security Council
resolution calling for an immediate Russian withdrawal from Georgia, but
veto-holding Russia declined to back it.
A draft text referred to "the territorial integrity of Georgia within its
internationally recognised borders". Russia argues that phrasing implies the
pro-Russian rebel region of South Ossetia, at the centre of the conflict,
should be reintegrated into Georgia proper.
Russia says this is a remote prospect after the bloodshed of the last two
weeks.
Near the village of Igoeti, the closest Russian checkpoint to the capital
Tbilisi, Russian troops wearing helmets with the sky-blue bands of
peacekeepers were digging into foxholes at the side of the road. There was no
sign of Russian convoys on the move there, some 45 km (30 miles) from the
capital.
The crisis erupted on Aug. 7-8 when Georgia tried to recapture South Ossetia,
which broke with Tbilisi in 1992. Russian forces hit back, thrusting beyond
the region into the Georgian heartland, overrunning the army in fierce
fighting.
Medvedev, who has worked closely during the crisis with his mentor and
powerful Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, announced on Sunday his troops would
begin withdrawing on Monday.
But Washington said on Tuesday it had yet to see any serious pullout and
accused Russia of targeting civilians and wanting to strangle Georgia.
"It's becoming more and more the outlaw in this conflict," U.S. Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice said of Russia, escalating a stream of criticism from
Washington.
"They intend and probably still do intend to strangle Georgia and its
economy," she said in Brussels, where she attended a NATO meeting on Tuesday
that proclaimed support for alliance-aspirant Georgia.
PEACEFUL RESISTANCE
NATO ministers, meeting in emergency session in Brussels on Tuesday, agreed
to suspend regular contacts with Russia. But they did not announce moves to
speed up Georgian accession to the Western military alliance, as Tbilisi had
hoped.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said NATO's response to the conflict
was biased and accused the Atlantic alliance of siding with a "criminal
regime" in Tbilisi.
The Kremlin quoted Medvedev on Tuesday as telling French President Nicolas
Sarkozy by telephone that most Russian forces would withdraw to Russia or to
South Ossetia by Aug. 22, leaving some troops in a buffer zone around the
breakaway region.
Some Russian troops have already begun adopting the colours of peacekeepers,
but there was still uncertainty over where and in what numbers they may be
stationed after the pullout.
Medvedev told Sarkozy he agreed to the presence of observers from the
Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in the buffer zone, a
French statement said.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, branded a dangerous madman by Moscow,
reaffirmed his determination to resist what he sees as Russian attempts to
bully Georgia back into Soviet-era subservience.
"As a European nation Georgians have continued to resist in peaceful ways and
this peaceful resistance will continue and intensify," he said.
"The only thing I can promise the Russians is that we will not fall, Georgia
will not fall and that civilian, peaceful resistance will...expand and we
will eventually create conditions where they have no other options but to
leave." (Writing by Gareth Jones and Ralph Boulton; Editing by Jon Boyle)
c Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved
http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSLK708802._CH_.2400?sp=true
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