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Russia?s links to West scrutinized after Georgia
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Russia?s links to West scrutinized after Georgia
European heavyweights Germany and Britain questioned Russia?s participation in Western institutions yesterday, a day before EU leaders meet to decide what action to take over the Kremlin?s intervention in Georgia.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sent troops and tanks into Georgia this month to stop what he called a genocide against separatist regions, but he now faces growing condemnation in the West, which accuses Russia of occupying parts of Georgia.
Georgia?s pro-Western government, which last week severed diplomatic ties with Russia, said it had pulled out of a long-standing peacekeeping deal that Moscow has used to justify the presence of its troops inside Georgia.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would be pushing for a «root and branch» review of ties with Russia when he joins other EU leaders for an emergency summit in Brussels today, and an ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Russia should be suspended from the Group of Eight.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who holds the rotating EU presidency, called the summit so the bloc can respond to Russia?s intervention in Georgia and its recognition of independence for two breakaway regions.
«Energy stranglehold over Europe»</B>
«In the light of Russian actions, the EU should review ? root and branch ? our relationship with Russia,» Brown wrote in a comment published in Britain?s Observer newspaper.
Referring to Russia?s role as a supplier of more than a quarter of Europe?s gas ? which some observer say has tempered European condemnation ? Brown said: «No nation can be allowed to exert an energy stranglehold over Europe.»
Eckart von Klaeden, who holds the foreign policy brief for Merkel?s Christian Democrats (CDU) in parliament, said leading industrial nations should meet as the G7, without Russia, until Russia complies with international demands. «The West took Russia in as a member of the G8 grouping of the most important democratic industrial nations even though it fulfilled neither the economic nor the political requirements,» von Klaeden wrote in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
«Thus, these nations should meet in the old G7 format as long as Russia is not prepared to find a solution under the framework of the United Nations.»
Russia sent in its troops after Georgia?s military tried to retake South Ossetia, one of two Moscow-backed breakaway regions. Russia pulled out the bulk of its forces in line with a French-brokered ceasefire deal.
But it has kept soldiers and equipment in the «security zones» which include undisputed Georgian territory around South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Western governments have demanded that Moscow pull its troops back to pre-conflict positions. The Kremlin says the troops are peacekeepers. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has accused the United States of provoking the conflict with Georgia to benefit one of the sides in the U.S. presidential race.
Georgia said late on Saturday it had annulled a 1994 ceasefire and disengagement agreement ? signed with Moscow after earlier fighting ? that gave Russian peacekeepers the right to a presence in Georgia. «According to these agreements, the Russians had certain rights on Georgian territory,» Georgian television station Rustavi-2 quoted the Reintegration Minister Temur Iakobashvili as saying. «Now the Russians have no rights whatsoever on Georgian territory ... Their presence here is illegal and they should leave Georgia.»
Signaling Washington?s support for its Georgian ally, two U.S. navy ships vessels have delivered aid to Georgian ports and a third, the navy command ship USS Mount Whitney, is en route with more. Russia views with suspicion the use of U.S. warships to deliver aid to Georgia and says it is worried by the build-up of alliance navy ships in the Black Sea, where the Russian navy has traditionally been dominant.
<B>Conor Sweeney</B>
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