Russia Aims To Absorb Breakaway Region

Holds Talks With South Ossetia; Georgia To Recall All Diplomatic Staff From Moscow

(AP)  Russia intends to eventually absorb Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia, a South Ossetian official said Friday, three days after Moscow recognized the region as independent and drew criticism from the West.

Georgia, meanwhile, said it would recall all diplomatic staff from its embassy in Moscow on Saturday because of the Russian military presence in Georgia. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nestrenko criticized the move, saying it "will not benefit our bilateral relations," Russian news agencies reported.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the region's leader, Eduard Kokoity, discussed the future of South Ossetia earlier this week in Moscow, South Ossetian parliamentary speaker Znaur Gassiyev said.

Russia will absorb South Ossetia "in several years" or earlier, a position was "firmly stated by both leaders," Gassiyev said.

In Moscow, a Kremlin spokeswoman said Friday there was "no official information" on the talks.

The vice speaker of Georgia's parliament, Gigi Tsereteli, said the statement cannot be taken seriously.

"The separatist regimes of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the Russian authorities are cut off from reality," he said in Tbilisi. "The world has already become different and Russia will not long be able to occupy sovereign Georgian territory."

"The regimes of Abkhazia and South Ossetia should think about the fact that if they become part of Russia, they will be assimilated and in this way they will disappear," he added.

Moscow's recognition Tuesday of South Ossetia and another separatist province, Abkhazia, came on the back of a short war that began Aug. 7, when Georgia launched a military offensive to retake South Ossetia. Russia responded by rolling hundreds of tanks into the Moscow-friendly province and pushed the Georgian army out.

Russia blasted the offensive as blind aggression, saying the move deprived Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili of the moral authority to defend Georgia's territorial integrity.

Georgia and the West in turn criticized Russia for pressing further into Georgia proper and for ignoring a cease-fire brokered by the European Union.

But a high-ranking official in French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office says that for now "we don't foresee any sanctions decided on by the European Council."

European Union leaders are holding a summit Monday and some member countries have pushed to punish Russia over the crisis with Georgia. But Sarkozy's office believes Europe must concentrate on pressuring Russia to apply a cease-fire agreement.

France currently holds the rotating EU presidency.

The official spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because of office policy. He elaborated on remarks by France's foreign minister, who has said sanctions were being considered.

Meanwhile, Russia and South Ossetia plan to sign an agreement on the placement of Russian military bases in South Ossetia, the province's deputy parliamentary speaker Tarzan Kokoiti said. How many bases that involves will become clear on Sept. 2, when the document is set to be signed, he said.

He said South Ossetians have the right to reunite with North Ossetia, which is part of Russia.

"Soon there will be no North or South Ossetia - there will be a united Alania as part of Russia," Kokoiti said, using another name for Ossetia.

"We will live in one united Russian state," he said.

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 U.S. presidential campaign - a contention the White House dismissed as "patently false."

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

Kurt Volker, the U.S. Ambassador to NATO, said Friday that the fighting was prompted by Russian pressure and shelling from South Ossetia.

"We did have lots of contacts with Georgia over a long period of time. And the nature of that has always been to say 'don't let yourself get drawn into a military confrontation here,"' Volker said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. "Georgia found it too hard to hold that line when they were seeing what Russia was preparing to do."

[yongamerica]

Now is the time for NATO to stand up for every principle it was founded on. Now is the time for intervention in Georgia and to replace every crocked Russian with international peace keepers.

[rdupuy11]

The 75,000 South Ossetians should be re-united with the 750,000 North Ossetians.

They should never be handed over to the brutality and ethnic hate mongering inside Georgia.

End this absurd cold-war style political rant, and realize, that it isn''t about Russia, its about Ossetia. The eastern strongman Saakashvili and his war against and ethnic group inside his own country.

This cannot be compared to Czechoslovokia, because, 1) South Ossetia has been independent for 17 years already. 2) South Ossetia is a democracy that invited the Russians in. 3) the peacekeeping force, i.e. Russias mandate to protect Ossetia, established 17 years ago, and 4) it was precipitated by the Georgians vicious attempt to destroy the capital in Tshkinvali. 5) Georgia was not taken, Tblisi was not entered.

What you have is Russia re-establishing the 17 year independence of the Ossetians, and working on permanaent steps to protect them and not return them to the ultra dangerous status quo.

I support South Ossetian people, their overwhelming desire to re-unite with North Ossetia.

I reject all this ridiculous propoganda, that has now gone so far of course, that you are in some kind of strange pseudo-world of your own creation.

[prudentvoter]

Before joining Imperial Russia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia were constantly under attack from neighboring countries and from the marauding hoards that passed through the region. They willingly sought inclusion within Russia to receive the protection of a larger union, and went on to live in peace for hundreds of years. They enjoyed an autonomous existence much the same as states in the US, and were able to preserve their ethnic identity.

When the Soviet Union was formed, Georgian Joseph Stalin arbitrarily lumped them together with Georgia. However as soon as the Soviet system collapsed, Abkhazia and South Ossetia tried to break off again and to be on their own. Georgian Saakashvili wants to ethnically cleanse them from their land and take the territory over for Georgia, much the same way Israel expands into the Palestine. George Bush, *** Cheney, Karl Rove et al want to see the land included within Georgia so that they can control all territory south of the Caucuses.

Keeping the two states as part of Russia would just be a continuum of the established order, and would protect their citizens from Georgian aggression.

[rdupuy11]

I don''t blame our leaders, in fact, expect of them to have some wariness about Russia, because it is a wealthy oil country, and in this integrated world, you keep tabs on things...

at the same time the rhetoric has gone into the stratoshpere, much of it absurd posturing, and the extreme disregard for human life here, on the part of the United States, the extreme disregard for democracy, the voters of South Ossetia, and for their elected leadership, for their independence and free will and, God given rights to self-determination.

As an american, born in America, I very much believe as our forefathers did, that certain rights are INALIENABLE, granted to us by God. Those include, LIFE and LIBERTY.

What Georgia did, should be absolutely foreign and disgusting to us.

It would be one thing if North Ossetians were facing the same treatment inside Russia, as South Ossetians do inside Georgia, but the fact is North Ossetians are in the Russian Federation by the mandate of their own people, and South Ossetians were systematically being driven out of their homeland, by the severe conditions inside Georgia, and the systematic impoverishment (which occurred over the last 17 years) and then later, when that didn''t work, the outright aggression of tanks rolling in and killing people in the capital.

[xalen54]

Abkhazia & South Ossetia have every right to do what they want from that lunatic Saakashvili.

[deacon20081]

How serious can we take this?
Folks named Tarzan and GiGi? :-)

[chatmandu002]

I honestly believe that some KGB agents are writing comments on this website to make the US and Georgia look like the bad guys. How else can you explain all the misinformation and lies.

[bob5ford]

Seems to me that if the people in the two areas want to re-unite with Russia that''s there business, not ours in the U.S. As I recall we fought a war with the last group that tried to leave us (the civil war), imagine if Russia had done that when the USSR broke up.
What we in the U.S. need to start doing is worrying about South America. Bolivia and Venezuela both have socialist governments that are popular at the moment. As soon as they start to have problems they will blame the US. Venezuela has already invited the Russians to base military aircraft there. The next real threat we face will not be far away across an ocean but in our own back yard. And it won%u2019t play out on the evening news, it will play out in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California and possibly Florida if Cuba becomes involved with a real shooting war. With our military tied up overseas where they don%u2019t belong it will be up to the militia to fight this war. Sound surreal? It may be real, sooner then you think!! Venezuela%u2019s government took over the cement plants owned by Mexico there today. They say the banks are next. It%u2019s getting closer.

[noboundary]

If I were Russia, I would be nervous with the US setting up missile sites all around it, and east European countries lining up to join NATO. The Russians have been pretty tolerant with the insanity of the Bush administration and that extremophile of a puppet Saakashvili.

[polar_bear3]

%u2026%u2026Hey haha assessing your comments I am very content to state that you ordinary Americans have a bit of sanity to understand that your insane rulers went tooo far. You people intruded and violated the sacred thing of ours, THE HOLLY RUSSIAN MOTHER LAND. The land of our fathers and our blood brothers in Caucasus. I am glad that your generals had enough brain to stop your doomed circus in millimeters from the abyss, a grave for them and your imbecile, vile scoundrel Bush little. I am not a KGB fellar, I am Russian man who lived among your western society long time and learned a lot about your niggling interests towards my country and your total coward ness as a common character trait for anglo saxon race. You American people brave only in Hollywood movies and capable to gibberish and snivel in reality and nothing else. So back off and keep your dirty femalish hands away from my land and my people. Russia is rejuvenating and getting back it%u2019s omnipotence and imperiousness. And nobody and nothing will stop it. Read a history you school pupils and stop threatening us with your bluffing worthless sanctions. Russia was, is and will be opulent and wealthy powerful land ruling half of the world%u2026

[ioweign]

I honestly believe that some KGB agents are writing comments on this website to make the US and Georgia look like the bad guys. How else can you explain all the misinformation and lies.

Posted by chatmandu002 at 04:28 PM : Aug 29, 2008


Gee, not after Bush looked into Putin''s eyes...

[samsel3]

The truth is, this is all about control of oil & gas pipelines. The BTC oil pipeline in South Ossetia & the Nabucco natural gas pipeline in NW Georgia supply markets in the European Union. In November 2003 the World Bank funded the BTC pipeline to circumvent Russian pipelines supplying europe.

Shareholders in the BTC pipeline are: British Petroleum, AzBTC, Chevron, Statoil, TPAO, ENI, Total, Itochu, INPEX, ConocoPhillips & Amerada Hess.
Russia is the second largest supplier of oil & gas on the planet.

After loosing Iraqi oil to Operation Iraqi Freedom, they negotiated supplies with Iran. The Russians were not happy with Cheneys BTC pipeline or the Caspian Sea Pipelines project going through Afghanistan. This threatens their economy based on oil & gas.

Again it''s the Bush administrations lust for money in World markets for their BIG OIL buddies