06 August 2004 10:22
Russian rhetoric blames Georgia for regional rows
Russian politicians kept their simmering rhetoric over Georgia's breakaway regions close to the boil on Thursday, attacking President Mikhail Saakashvili for threatening Russia and warning Washington not to get involved. Moscow and Tbilisi are at odds over the fate of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, parts of Georgia which won autonomy in separatist wars in 1992 and 1993, shortly after Georgia's own independence from the collapsing Soviet Union.
U.S.-educated Saakashvili wants to regain control over the regions and warned on Wednesday that Georgia would sink Russian vessels, including tour boats, approaching Abkhazia's Black Sea resorts – a remark that drew a furious response from Moscow.
Russia's State Duma, the lower house of parliament, blasted Tbilisi's "belligerence, and at times blatant aggression", in a statement which recalled Moscow's past authority while not acknowledging Georgia's sovereignty over the rebel regions.
"The conflict on the territory of the former Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic is rapidly moving towards a large-scale military standoff in the Caucasus," the statement said.
"The Georgian leadership's actions may cause the Russian Federation to get dragged in," it said.
"Georgia has chosen to resolve the existing problems by force but with total disregard for other interested parties."
Despite poverty and lack of mineral resources, Georgia is strategically important to the West because it is the site of a pipeline which will take Caspian oil to European markets. In the long run, Georgia also aspires to join the European Union.
But past ethnic conflicts and a border shared with Russia's war-torn region of Chechnya ensure the spectre of violence is ever present, while the rivalry between Moscow and Washington for influence raises the stakes in the dispute.
"We see how other countries are trying to spread their influence in this region and what help western states give Georgia, including military help," Igor Akhba, foreign minister of Abkhazia's unrecognised government, told Ekho Moskvy radio.
Russia's first deputy Foreign Minister Valery Loshchinin said Moscow resented increasing U.S. influence in the region.
"We don't like it and we draw the attention of the United States to the fact that it has a duty and an obligation to take Russia's legitimate interests in the region into account, including in Georgia," he was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass.
The rebel regions have close links to Moscow, whose mayor Yuri Luzhkov was in Abkhazia on Thursday. Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania criticised the veteran politician's support for Russian businesses in the region.
"Of course, if they want to throw money to the wind, that's their problem, but we would honestly advise that any act of privatisation in Abkhazia will only have meaning if it is carried out according to Georgian law," Zhvania said.
He did not repeat Saakashvili's threat to Russians in Abkhazia but blamed Russia for worsening the South Ossetian row.
"We would like Russia and South Ossetia to put an end to the hoo-ha they have kicked up and respond to our peaceful initiative about starting dialogue," he said.
He said Georgian, Russian and South Ossetian officials would meet in Sofia in October to discuss ways of solving the dispute.
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