Russia Vows to Support Two Enclaves, in Retort to Bush

MOSCOW-President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia said Thursday that Russia would act as an international guarantor of the two pro-Russian enclaves at the center of the crisis with Georgia, and Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov said that Georgia could “forget about” territorial integrity because of the war.The comments did not stake out a new position, but together, they offered a sharp retort to President Bush’s insistence a day earlier that “the sovereign and territorial integrity of Georgia be respected.”The Russian rebuke came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headed to the region to work for a settlement and to show support for the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili.Meanwhile, in Georgia, Russian forces briefly allowed the Georgian police to return to the city of Gori on Thursday morning as the Russian troops appeared to prepare to pull out. But joint patrols were canceled three hours later and the city returned to full Russian control.In a further sign that Russian forces remained in control of key parts of Georgian territory, Russian tanks patrolled the city of Poti, a Black Sea port farther west.Mr. Medvedev said he would support the independence aspirations of South Ossetians and Abkhazians if they were in accordance with the United Nations Charter, international conventions of 1966 and the Helsinki Act on Security and Cooperation in European.“You have been defending your land, and the right is on your side,” Mr. Medvedev said at a meeting with leaders of the two breakaway regions.“Russia’s position is unchanged: we will support any decisions taken by the peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in accordance with the U.N. Charter,” he said, adding that “not only do we support but we will guarantee them.”As Ms. Rice traveled to the region, she arrived in France to meet the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who brokered the cease-fire between Russia and Georgia, in the president’s summer residence in southern France.Ms. Rice was due later to travel to Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.On Wednesday, the United States and Georgia called the Russian advances into Gori and another strategic Georgian city a violation of the cease-fire agreement struck only hours earlier.In response, Mr. Bush sent American troops to Georgia to oversee a “vigorous and ongoing” humanitarian mission, in a direct challenge to Russia’s display of military dominance over the region. Mr. Bush demanded that Russia abide by the cease-fire and withdraw its forces or risk its place in “the diplomatic, political, economic and security structures of the 21st century.” It was his strongest warning yet of potential retaliation against Russia over the conflict.In Gori, which was the focus of international protest after Russia shelled it and occupied it on Wednesday, the attempt at joint patrols on Thursday suggested a cooling of tensions there.Gori is just 40 miles from Tbilisi, and rumors had circulated on Wednesday of a possible advance on the city. It was not clear why the joint patrols failed, but it appeared that personnel on the ground were in conflict. Around 10 a.m. Thursday, a Russian Army major ordered Georgian and Russian police officers to patrol in pairs. But this clearly did not last. “We had to go or there would have been shooting,” said a Georgian officer, who would not give his name.More than 30 Georgian police officers left Gori and returned to a post outside the city; shortly afterward Russian troops fired three artillery rounds. Their target was not clear.In Poti, three Russian tanks were seen patrolling the city. Villagers there said the Russian tanks frequently made the 30-minute drive from their base just northeast in Senaki to Poti to perform exercises on an abandoned military base, with troops jumping off their tanks and sweeping the area around them.A Georgian state television reporter was shot, but not seriously hurt, on Thursday afternoon while broadcasting live from the side of the road between Tbilisi and Gori. The reporter, Tamara Urushadze, wearing a flak jacket marked “TV,” was speaking when muffled pops could be heard. She looked over her shoulder, then stepped sideways and fell in front of the camera. A bullet grazed her left wrist, and Ms. Urushadze continued broadcasting live as she held her bleeding arm.In an interview on a liberal radio station, Ekho Moskvy, Mr. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said that Georgia’s territorial integrity was “de facto limited” and that any agreement suggesting otherwise would be “deeply insulting” to the people of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.He also said he was not worried about the threat of international isolation, the Interfax news agency reported.“I don’t know how they are going to isolate us,” he said.
By ELLEN BARRY and C.J. CHIVERS
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/world/europe/15georgia.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin
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