GORI, Georgia: Russia’s president said troops would begin pulling out of Georgia today, but made no mention of leaving the separatist province at the heart of the conflict between the countries.
A defiant Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said the former Soviet republic would not relinquish South Ossetia or Abkhazia — both now overrun with Russian troops and abandoned by Georgian soldiers — as Western leaders pushed for a swift Russian withdrawal from positions it has held for days of warfare.
“Georgia will never give up a square kilometer of its territory,” Saakashvili told a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the latest Western leader to visit Tbilisi and offer support for a country that has become a proxy for conflict between an emboldened Russia and the West.
In Washington, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the invasion of Georgia will require the US to re-evaluate its relationship with Russia.
“I think that there is a real concern that Russia has turned the corner here and is headed back toward its past rather than toward its future, and my hope is that we will see actions in the weeks and months to come that provide us some reassurance,” Gates said.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Russian President Dmitry Medvedev of failing to honor a promise to withdraw troops quickly from Georgia under terms of a cease-fire he signed on Saturday. The EU-backed cease-fire agreement calls for Georgian and Russian troops to withdraw to the positions they held before fighting broke out Aug. 7.
“I hope this time he’ll keep his word,” Rice said after Medvedev’s announcement that Russian troops would withdraw beginning today.
The Bush administration has struggled to respond to Russia’s invasion of its smaller US-backed neighbor, which Moscow ruled for most of the two centuries before the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
Georgia, which has sought NATO membership, launched a massive barrage Aug. 7 to try to take control of South Ossetia.
The Russian army quickly overwhelmed its neighbor’s forces and drove deep into Georgia, raising fears that of a long-term Russian occupation. Saakashvili alleged that Russian forces, far from withdrawing as the West has demanded, had moved closer to the capital on Saturday and — some of his trademark bluster still intact — vowed to defend Tbilisi if necessary. He also accused Russia of ethnic cleansing and said Georgia would not accept a future presence of Russian peacekeepers.
Medvedev told French President Nicolas Sarkozy that Russian forces would begin their withdrawal today, moving toward South Ossetia, according to the Kremlin. He stopped short of promising they would return to Russia, suggesting that Russia could maintain a sizable force in South Ossetia. That would likely fuel fears that Russia could seek to annex the region, which — like Abkhazia — broke from government control in the 1990s and has declared independence.
Merkel stressed German support from Georgia’s NATO aspirations, saying before the meeting that “Georgia will, if it wants — and it does want to — become a member of NATO.” She later said she did not know when that would happen.
