U.S. Eyed in Shevardnadze's Resignation (Soros money involved)

story.news.yahoo.com ^ | Sat Dec 6, 5:53 PM ET | MARA D. BELLABY

[Destro]

U.S. Eyed in Shevardnadze's Resignation

Sat Dec 6, 5:53 PM ET

By MARA D. BELLABY, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW - Russia's foreign minister has accused the United States of playing a role in the resignation of Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze last month, according to an interview published Saturday in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

"I think there are enough facts proving that what happened in those days wasn't spontaneous, it didn't arise suddenly," Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov was quoted as saying. "Of course, there were preparations and the U.S. ambassador was involved, as Shevardnadze himself admitted."

Ivanov also said that a fund set up by billionaire philanthropist George Soros to bolster civil society and the rule of law in the former Soviet Union played a role.

Shevardnadze had earlier accused Soros of funding the opposition, and he noted that U.S. Ambassador to Georgia, Richard Miles, was posted in Yugoslavia before the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites). Shevardnadze had told The Associated Press that Miles might have encouraged Georgia's opposition. Senior Washington officials have denied any U.S. conspiracy to depose Shevardnadze.

Ivanov noted in the interview that the White House also dispatched former U.S. Secretary of State James W. Baker to Georgia ahead of the Nov. 2 parliamentary elections. Baker, who knew Shevardnadze well, pushed the Georgian leader to ensure that the vote was free and fair. The protests that led to Shevardnadze's Nov. 23 resignation erupted amid widespread allegations that the elections had been rigged.

"I don't have any information or documents about what the aim of their mission was," Ivanov was quoted as saying. "But today it has become obvious that one of their goals was to convince Shevardnadze to resign his seat."

The U.S. State Department had no immediate comment on the charges.

Ivanov flew to Georgia as the crisis escalated, and shuttled between the opposition and Shevardnadze in an attempt to prevent bloodshed. He was in the capital, Tbilisi, when Shevardnadze resigned.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) spoke Saturday with Georgia's interim President Nino Burdzhanadze. The Kremlin said that Putin noted that "both countries need a genuine, friendly relationship."

Both the United States and Russia have jockeyed for influence in Georgia, which sits astride a proposed pipeline intended to carry oil from Azerbaijan to Turkey and Western markets.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld came to Georgia on Friday, a trip that seemed intended as much as a signal to Russia as an assertion of American support for Georgia.

The Bush administration worries that Russia is moving more aggressively to reassert its influence in the Caucasus region. Rumsfeld urged Russia to withdraw its troops from Georgia as it promised to do in a 1999 deal, known as the Istanbul Accords. Ivanov, however, was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying that Russia had agreed to conduct talks about the bases and it was meeting that promise.

"As a professional diplomat, I recommend everyone read the documents, preferably in the original," Ivanov was quoted as saying.

The Russian government has said it needs a decade or more for complete withdrawal of its troops, but the Georgians have pushed Russia to speed up the process.