Rusland bombardeert Georgië

[ThomasDR]

Rusland zal zich terugtrekken uit Zuid-Ossetië. Dat heeft de Russische president Medvedev toegezegd tijdens een overleg met de Franse president Sarkozy en voorzitter Barroso van de Europese Commissie.

Vredesmacht

Rusland heeft ingestemd met de terugtrekking onder de voorwaarde dat er een internationale vredesmacht in Zuid-Ossetië wordt gestationeerd. Ook eiste Medvedev dat Georgië niet opnieuw militair mag ingrijpen in de afvallige provincies.

Volgens Sarkozy zullen zo'n 200 Europese waarnemers toezicht houden op de Russische terugtrekking

Bron:Spitsnieuws

[georges]

08 September 2008
Rusland: geen EU-waarnemers Georgië

Rusland wil niet dat de Europese Unie waarnemers stuurt naar Georgië. Dat zegt het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken in Moskou. Een EU-waarnemersmissie leidt volgens de Russen tot een versnipperde aanpak. In Georgië zijn onder meer al vertegenwoordigers van de OVSE.

De Franse president Sarkozy is namens de EU in Moskou om Rusland te houden aan het zespuntenplan. Daarin staat dat Rusland zich uit Georgië terugtrekt.

Later gaat Sarkozy naar Tblisi om met de Georgische president Saakasjvili te overleggen. EU-buitenlandcoördinator Solana en voorzitter Barroso van de Europese Commissie reizen met hem mee.

Bron: NOS teletekst

[KapiteinRob]

Op de dienstberichten van de forumbeheerders na, lijkt het wel of dit onderwerp in een Engelstalig forum verdwaald is. Mag het ook graag een beetje in het Nederlands, voor hen die het Engels niet of niet voldoende machtig zijn?

Ik ondersteun deze oproep. Het is natuurlijk niet verboden om artikelen in het engels te plaatsen, maar wellicht kan desbetreffende plaatser de strekking van het artikel kort samenvatten in het Nederlands?

BVD,

Rob
Forumbeheerder

[georges]

Op de dienstberichten van de forumbeheerders na, lijkt het wel of dit onderwerp in een Engelstalig forum verdwaald is. Mag het ook graag een beetje in het Nederlands, voor hen die het Engels niet of niet voldoende machtig zijn?

Maar dan moet het ook aangeboden worden natuurlijk :) (en berichten in de Nederlandse kranten kun je vaak zelf makkelijk volgen bijv. www.kranten.com)

[Ton de Zwart]

Op de dienstberichten van de forumbeheerders na, lijkt het wel of dit onderwerp in een Engelstalig forum verdwaald is. Mag het ook graag een beetje in het Nederlands, voor hen die het Engels niet of niet voldoende machtig zijn?

[Ros]

Ik heb dit topic verplaatst teneinde Geogië (in de titel) te wijzigen in Georgië.

Ben
Forumbeheer

[Ros]

De VS papt aan met Libië en de Russen trekken de banden aan met Iran. Het lijkt inderdaad op een schaakspel waarbij zet op zet word gedaan om elkaar het leven zuur te maken. Straks is het remise en begin de "dreiging" met kernwapens weer. Terug naar af.

Cold War II here we come............

[georges]

Moscow-Tehran keep military ties

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 08:51:04 GMT

Russia's leading military exporter says the country cooperates with Iran in all technical, military and energy fields, despite US opposition.

A Russian state news agency has quoted Mikhail Savali, the Director of the Special Orders Department of Rosoboronexport, as saying "we have invested a lot in the country and there exists a good outlook for Russian presence in Iran."

Zavali made the statement while visiting an international aero-space exhibition in the Russian city of Glendjik on Friday.

He made it clear that Moscow does not care about other countries view on the issue.

Zavali stressed that the Russian policy regarding Iran is opposed by the US because the Americans only follow their own interests in the region.

Rosoboronexport is the sole state intermediary for Russian imports and exports of defense-related products, technologies and services. It is responsible for implementing Russian state policy relating to military cooperation between Russia and foreign countries.

Rosoboronexport is one of the world's largest players in the defense and military industries.




Bron: MVZ/CW/DT

[georges]

Dit zou de reactie van Putin kunnen zijn op de aanwezigheid van NATO-schepen. Nou maar wachten op de volgende zet. Het lijkt soms wel de wedstrijd Bobby Fischer - Boris Spassky in de Koude Oorlog.


Vladimir Putin set to bait US with nuclear aid for Tehran

Mark Franchetti in Moscow
Russia is considering increasing its assistance to Iran's nuclear programme in response to America's calls for Nato expansion eastwards and the presence of US Navy vessels in the Black Sea delivering aid to Georgia.

The Kremlin is discussing sending teams of Russian nuclear experts to Tehran and inviting Iranian nuclear scientists to Moscow for training, according to sources close to the Russian military.

Moscow has been angered by Washington's promise to give Georgia £564m in aid following the Russian invasion of parts of the country last month after Tbilisi's military offensive. Kremlin officials suspect the US is planning to rearm the former Soviet republic and is furious at renewed support for attempts by Georgia and Ukraine to join Nato.

Last week a third US Navy ship entered the Black Sea with aid bound for Georgia. Moscow has accused the Americans of using the vessels to deliver weapons but has failed to provide any evidence.

Vladimir Putin, the prime minister of Russia, who has been the driving force during the crisis, has declared he will take unspecified action in response.

"Everything has changed since the war in Georgia," said one source. "What seemed impossible before, is more than possible now when our friends become our enemies and our enemies our friends. What are American ships doing off our coast? Do you see Russian warships off the coast of America?

"Russia will respond. A number of possibilities are being considered, including hitting America there where it hurts most – Iran."

Increasing nuclear assistance to Iran would sharply escalate tensions between Moscow and Washington. Over the past 10 years Russia has helped Iran build its first nuclear power station in Bushehr. Iran claims the plant is for civilian purposes. Officially at least, Moscow accepts that. The West has little doubt the aim is to build a nuclear bomb.

But diplomats say that despite its help with the Bushehr plant, Moscow has so far played a constructive role as a mediator between the regime in Tehran and the West and by backing United Nations sanctions.

Earlier this year, in one of his last actions as president, Putin added Russia's stamp of approval to a UN security council resolution imposing fresh sanctions against Iran.

The document bans, with the exception of the Bushehr project, dual-technology exports that could be used for civil nuclear purposes and missile production.

"After the war in Georgia it's difficult to imagine relations between Russia and America getting worse," said a western diplomat. "Russia giving greater nuclear assistance to the Iranians would do the trick – that's for sure."

Last month Russia agreed to sell missiles to Syria. "The mood among the hawks is very bullish indeed," said one source who did not rule out a resumption of Russian military action in Georgia to take the port of Batumi, where American vessels are delivering aid.

Hardliners were infuriated last week by the visit to Georgia of Dick Cheney, the American vice-president. "Georgia will be in our alliance," Cheney said. He also visited Ukraine, whose Nato aspirations could make it the next flashpoint between Russia and America.

However in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, events appeared to be moving Moscow's way. Viktor Yushchenko, the pro-western president, is fighting to stay in power in a crisis that could see him impeached.

"I'm amused by claims in the West that Russia is the loser in this crisis," said a former Putin aide. "What would Washington do if we were arming Cuba the way it armed Georgia? The postSoviet days when we could be pushed around are over."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4692237.ece

[georges]

US unloads aid to Georgia, Russians eye every move

By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press Writer

As nearby Russian forces watched intently, a U.S. Navy ship unloaded 17 tons of humanitarian aid to a strategic Georgian port that was devastated in last month's war between Russia and Georgia.
A massive Georgian floating crane lifted about 40 pallets stacked with toilet paper, toothpaste, diapers, blankets and other aid off the deck of the USS Mount Whitney, the first Navy ship to travel to Poti since the war.
A tugboat then guided the crane to shore, where trucks waited to take the aid to the central city of Kutaisi, which is still sheltering thousands of displaced people from the fighting in August. Kutaisi is about 56 miles (90 kilometers) from Poti.
Saturday's delivery completes a series of aid shipments that have demonstrated U.S. support for Georgia and angered Russia.
Russian troops were obviously determined to keep an eye on the American aid delivery.
A Russian warship trailed the Mount Whitney — _ the flagship of the U.S. Navy's Mediterranean fleet — across the Black Sea, U.S. officials said, and Russian military forces onshore — just 3 miles (nearly 5 kilometers) from the ship's anchorage — kept watch Saturday.
"They're clearly watching us very, very closely, and I think they'll be very happy when we leave," the ship's commanding officer, Capt. Owen Honors, told The Associated Press.
Honors said the Russian troop post, only 3 miles (nearly 5 kilometers) from Poti, has been very busy in the past day.
"There was quite a bit of activity when we arrived yesterday," he said.
The Kremlin has watched the arrival of the U.S. warships carrying aid to Georgia with deep suspicion. Russian officials say previous U.S. military assistance encouraged Georgia to launch the Aug. 7 offensive against its separatist province of South Ossetia, and allege the U.S. aid shipments could be a cover for weapons deliveries.
U.S. officials have dismissed those accusations.
At one Russian position near Poti, several light tanks and armored personnel carriers bearing Russian peacekeeping insignias could be seen Saturday behind a high earthen berm and razor-wire fence. An excavator was digging new holes nearby.
Soldiers refused to let an Associated Press reporter speak to the commander of the post, but knew what he planned to ask.
"Yes, we saw the ship. It's a very good ship," one Russian officer responded coyly. He refused to give his name or rank.
The continued presence of Russian troops in Poti has been a major point of friction between Russia and the West, which insists Moscow has failed to honor a deal to pull troops back to positions held before fighting broke out Aug. 7.
Georgia's economic development minister, Ekaterina Sharashidze, said the presence of the U.S. ship in Poti sent "a strong signal to Russia and the world that Georgia is a sovereign country and nobody else has the right to be here."
Capt. John Moore, the commander of the task force that has brought some 450 tons of aid to Georgia on three naval ships and numerous U.S. planes, said a Russian warship had shadowed the Mount Whitney since it entered the Black Sea earlier this week.
The Russian ship, the frigate Ladnyy, had kept 4,000 yards (meters) away and stayed back in international waters Friday after the U.S. ship crossed into Georgian waters 12 miles from Poti, he said.
The U.S. ship was due to leave Poti later Saturday and head back to the Mediterranean. The U.S. Embassy in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi said no further ship deliveries of U.S. aid were planned.
In Moscow, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev repeated suggestions that the aid was just a guise to resupply Georgia with military equipment.
"Unfortunately, the situation is like this ... the rearming of the Georgian regime, including under the flag of humanitarian aid, is continuing," Medvedev told a meeting of regional governors Saturday.
"It's interesting how they would feel if we were now to send humanitarian aid using our navy to the countries of the Caribbean sea, which recently suffered from a destructive hurricane," he added.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/09/05/international/i041609D01.DTL&type=printable 

[georges]

South Ossetia is not Kosovo

Russia's recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia cannot be justified by a bogus comparison to Kosovo
WITH a flourish, Russia this week recognised the "independence" of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the enclaves that gave it a casus belli for its war on Georgia (see article). The Abkhaz and Ossetians celebrated their reward for living under Russian protection for 15 years. The Russians saw it as a logical outcome of their victory, a further stage in their confrontation with the West—and a copy of what happened in Kosovo. As Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, argued, "you cannot have one rule for some and another rule for others."

Yet the West is right to respond firmly to Russia's new belligerence by refusing to recognise the new states. Never mind that Russia is itself being incoherent in continuing to insist that Kosovo's independence from Serbia is still illegal (a stance driven in part by its wish to avoid setting a precedent for Chechnya or other restive republics within Russia). Mr Medvedev's assertion of a parallel between Kosovo and South Ossetia is almost entirely bogus.

This is not to deny the superficial similarities that the West would do well to accept. NATO's air war on Kosovo and Serbia in 1999 was, like the Iraq war in 2003, conducted without the legal approval of the United Nations. Both wars were aimed in part at regime change. Last February's recognition by many Western countries of Kosovo's independence from Serbia again lacked formal UN blessing (thanks to Russia's threatened veto). All this made it inevitable that Kosovo, like Iraq, would be cited as justification for other adventures. The West knew that Kosovo's independence, in particular, risked becoming an excuse for Russian recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Yet this is where the parallels run out. In Georgia's enclaves, Russian forces have acted as self-interested troublemakers, not as neutral peacekeepers. Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic long oppressed the Kosovo Albanians, as well as perpetrating war and ethnic cleansing right across former Yugoslavia. But it was the Georgians who ended up as the bigger victims of ethnic cleansing in Abkhazia in the 1990s, and have been again in South Ossetia in the past three weeks. Unlike Milosevic, Georgia's Mikheil Saakashvili is a democratically elected president who will surely be held to account by voters for his impetuous decision to invade South Ossetia on August 7th.

Motive provides an even clearer difference. Throughout the 1990s the Americans and Europeans were extremely reluctant to get involved in the Balkans. After Milosevic's withdrawal from Kosovo in 1999, the main role of the UN and NATO forces in the province was to protect the Serb minority and Serb religious sites. The Western powers devoted years to negotiations over the province's future, culminating in UN-led talks under Martti Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president. Only when these failed, again thanks mainly to Russian intransigence, did Kosovo's unilateral independence become inevitable.

In total contrast, Russia has nakedly pursued its own interests in the Caucasus. It did its utmost to provoke Mr Saakashvili into a fight. Its "peacekeepers" have made no pretence of protecting minorities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It has not even tried to promote serious negotiations over the territories' future. Instead, it has steadily cemented their links with Russia, building up military facilities and giving the local people Russian passports (a transparent ploy to justify a later purported need to "protect" Russian citizens). Although Mr Saakashvili took the catastrophic decision to send in the Georgian army, resulting in many civilian deaths, no evidence has been offered by the Russians to support their wild claims of genocide or ethnic cleansing.

Peacekeepers or piece-keepers?
The difference between Kosovo and South Ossetia has been starker still in the war's aftermath. In 1999 the Western powers went in as a last resort and quickly internationalised the issue, bringing in the UN and international peacekeepers. Eight years of patient diplomacy preceded Kosovo's independence. The Russians invaded Georgia in a fever of war enthusiasm; have refused to pull out and rejected attempts to internationalise the dispute; and have now recognised the enclaves' independence less than three weeks after the war began.

In principle, sub-national states should sometimes be able to secede, but South Ossetia and Abkhazia clearly do not qualify. Neither enclave has properly consulted its people, including huge numbers of Georgian refugees. Nor has there been a long, hard effort to find a negotiated settlement. Mr Saakashvili should stop promising to regain control of the enclaves, and the West should insist on the case for international peacekeepers. But Russia's aggression in Georgia must not be rewarded by conceding the enclaves' independence. That really could set a dangerous precedent, in Ukraine, Moldova and—not least—inside Russia itself.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12009678 

[KapiteinRob]

De EU weer met z'n waarnemers......

[Lex]

EU eens over waarnemersmissie in Georgië

AVIGNON - EU-ministers van Buitenlandse Zaken zijn het zaterdag eens geworden over een waarnemersmissie van de EU in Georgië.
De ongeveer tweehonderd waarnemers gaan in eerste instantie samen met collega's van de OVSE op pad in Georgië. Nederland heeft ook aangeboden waarnemers te leveren. 

Bufferzones
Het is de bedoeling dat de waarnemers toezicht gaan houden in de bufferzones aan de grens van Zuid-Ossetië. Die zones worden nu nog door Russische militairen bezet gehouden.
De Russen hebben eerder beloofd daar te vertrekken en de EU heeft overleg over een nieuw samenwerkingsakkoord opgeschort zolang de terugtrekking niet is voltooid.

Sarkozy
De Franse president Nicolas Sarkozy reist maandag naar Moskou om bij zijn Russische collega Dmitri Medvedev opnieuw aan te dringen op terugtrekking van het Russische leger naar posities die het innam voor het begin van het conflict met Georgië op 7 augustus.

(c) ANP Uitgegeven: 6 september 2008 16:12

[Enforcer]

1. Ze komen goed weg.
2. Stond er wel "TV" op de voorkant en de zijkanten van die Discovery?

[georges]

Opmerkelijk filmpje Franse journalisten in Georgie. (Let op de voorruit van de auto!! :o :o)

http://www.apacheclips.com/view/322/georiga-french-reports-getting-shot-at/