"And Leon's getting laaaarger..."
Posted on 05/06/2008 6:56:47 AM PDT by The Pack Knight
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Russia's deployment of extra troops in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia has brought the prospect of war "very close," a minister of ex-Soviet Georgia said on Tuesday.
Separately, in comments certain to fan rising tension between Moscow and Tbilisi, the "foreign minister" of the breakaway Black Sea region was quoted as saying it was ready to hand over military control to Russia.
"We literally have to avert war," Temur Iakobashvili, a Georgian State Minister, told reporters in Brussels.
Asked how close to such a war the situation was, he replied: "Very close, because we know Russians very well."
"We know what the signals are when you see propaganda waged against Georgia. We see Russian troops entering our territories on the basis of false information," he said.
Georgia, a vital energy transit route in the Caucasus region, has angered Russia, its former Soviet master with which it shares a land border, by seeking NATO membership.
An April summit of the U.S.-led Western alliance stopped short of giving it a definite track towards membership but confirmed it would enter one day.
Russia has said its troop build-up is needed to counter what it says are Georgian plans to attack Abkhazia, a sliver of land by the Black Sea, and has accused Tbilisi of trying to suck the West into a war -- allegations Georgia rejects.
Tensions have been steadily mounting and escalated after Georgia accused Russia of shooting down one of its drones over Abkhazia in April, a claim Russia denied.
An extra Russian contingent began arriving in Abkhazia last week. Moscow has not said how many troops would be added but said the total would remain within the 3,000 limit allowed under a United Nations-brokered ceasefire agreement signed in 1994. Diplomats expect the reinforcement to be of the order of 1,200.
SECURITY GUARANTEES
Russian soldiers acting as peacekeepers patrol areas between Georgian and Abkhazian forces but handing full military control of the breakaway province to the Kremlin would alarm both the Georgian government and its allies in the West.
"Those 200 km (120 miles), the distance between the Psou and the Inguri rivers, are all Abkhazia. We agree to Russia taking this territory under its military control," Sergei Shamba, "foreign minister" of Abkhazia, told the Russian newspaper Izvestia.
"In exchange, we will demand guarantees of our security."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow had not received an official request from Abkhazia for its military to take control of the region.
After the NATO summit, Moscow announced plans to establish legal links with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, another "frozen conflict" region inside Georgia.
NATO has urged Russia to reverse the steps and complained that the deployment of extra troops would add to tensions. The European Union has also expressed concerns.
Iakobashvili said Georgia was urging the European Union to take a more active role in reducing tensions, with options including participating in border control or policing.
"We should have more Europe in these conflict zones," he said, while adding that no decisions on a bigger EU role had been taken during his talks in Brussels.
(Additional reporting in Moscow by James Kilner; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
Go Dawgs!!!
Hopefully General Sherman doesn’t work for the Russkies.
Guess Sonny Perdue’s had just about enough of Putin
Some trivial backwater incident could trigger the global thermonuclear annihilation event. Those who survive will never figure out what happened.
No surprise. What else would you expect from a people who unleashed Communism on the world?
You made me spill my beer!!
Stalin was Georgian.
...and Marx was German.
“Stalin was Georgian. “
So is Carter.
...and Leon Trotsky was Ukranian
"And Leon's getting laaaarger..."
“Stalin was Georgian. “
But he didn’t start communism, he just used it to kill. Russians bought into communism. They are responsible for it’s continuing influence and for the millions killed by it.
And Lenin was Russian. ==
Lenin was tatarin. And Trotsky was jew.
Ah. The xenophobic Russian anti semite speaks. Nice try.
I LOVE it when you Moscals drop the mask....
Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1870 - 1924)
Early Life
Born on April 10, 1870 this son of a Russian nobleman was to have a profound effect on the future of Russia and, indeed, the world. His father had been the son of a serf who had risen to post of inspector of schools in Simbirsk. While his mother was the daughter of land owning physician.
Yep. I hate racists and niggers...
Why? Let 'em fight. We don't have a dog in this.
Born on April 10, 1870 this son of a Russian nobleman was to have a profound effect on the future of Russia and, indeed, the world. ==
His father was empirial nobleman but he wasn’t ethnic Russian. His mother was german-jewish.
Lenin was the Russian Empirial citizen but wasn’t no Russian.
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