Europeans Set To Deploy Monitors In Georgia

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
October 1, 2008
Pg. 14

By Ellen Barry
MOSCOW — The European Union prepared Tuesday to deploy 200 civilian monitors throughout Georgia, though Russian military officials said they would not allow the Europeans to begin work in the buffer zones that surround the separatist enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
European monitors expect to replace Russian peacekeeping units that have set up command posts in the buffer zones. A cease-fire agreement requires the Russians to withdraw their forces fully to South Ossetia and Abkhazia by Oct. 10.
“We now look forward to all parties fulfilling their commitments as much as the E.U. did,” said Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, who inaugurated the mission at a ceremony in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.
But Georgian officials expressed frustration that the European monitors would not have immediate access to the buffer zones, as expected, or to the enclaves themselves. “We feel sad that we have a neighbor which doesn’t respect international law, doesn’t respect its neighbors’ sovereignty and doesn’t respect its own commitments,” said David Bakradze, Georgia’s minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration.
Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian president, said at a news conference that he was “cautiously optimistic” about the monitoring mission, though he continued to press for a complete Russian withdrawal.
“Let’s have no illusions with it,” he said. “We will not be happy until the very last soldier gets out of my country.”
The conflict in Georgia flared into open warfare on Aug. 8, hours after President Saakashvili ordered an attack on the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, which has strong Russian ties. Russia sent columns of troops into South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and deep into Georgian territory.
Moscow formally recognized the two enclaves as sovereign nations on Aug. 26, and posted troops in buffer zones outside their borders. After tense negotiations with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Russia agreed to allow European monitors to be deployed to the area on Oct. 1 and agreed to withdraw its troops to the enclaves by mid-October.
Vitaly Manushko, a spokesman for the Russian peacekeeping force, said Tuesday that the European Union monitors would “work up to the southern border of the security zone, which is an agreed position of the parties.”
“This decision does not mean a ban on the E.U. military observers’ monitoring of the buffer zone,” Mr. Manushko said, according to the Interfax news agency. “But the details of such monitoring have not been agreed upon at this point, and therefore a decision on it will be made later.”
Since the end of the conflict, both the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have sought access to South Ossetia, where fierce fighting displaced tens of thousands of Georgians and Ossetians.
The O.S.C.E. walked away from talks with Russia on the matter of access for observers on Sept. 18. The European Union mission has moved forward with plans to place its monitors in the buffer zone, hoping to later gain access to South Ossetia.
Tensions rose over [FONT=Times New Roman, Times]the[/FONT] deployment less than a day after the cease-fire agreement was struck. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said European negotiators had made an “absolutely unscrupulous attempt” to appease Georgia by suggesting that they would be able to patrol South Ossetia itself.
Stephen Castle contributed reporting from Brussels, and Olesya Vartanyan from Tbilisi, Georgia.
 
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