Russia: To Withdraw From Georgia

By The Associated Press

GORI, Georgia (AP) – Russia’s president promised to start withdrawing forces from positions in Georgia today, but suggested they could stay in the breakaway region at the heart of the fighting that has reignited Cold War tensions.

Bolstered by Western support, Georgia’s leader vowed never to abandon its claim to territory now firmly in the hands of Russia and its separatist allies, even though he has few means of asserting control. His pledge, echoed by Western insistence that Georgia must not be broken apart, portends further tension over separatist South Ossetia

and Abkhazia.

In Gori, a strategic central city in the small former Soviet republic, there were signs of a looser Russian grip – and scenes of desperation as Georgians crowded around aid vehicles and grasped for loaves of bread.

Virtually all shops were closed and the streets almost empty, save for clusters of people who gathered around aid vehicles and a basement bakery.

Georgia hit the Russia-backed separatist region of South Ossetia with a massive barrage on Aug. 7, and Russian troops rolled in, advancing far into the Caucasus Mountain nation and raising fears of a long-term occupation of a country at the center of a power struggle between a resurgent Russia and the West.

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.

But Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s silence on South Ossetia has fueled fears that Russia could annex the region, which – like Abkhazia – broke from Georgia government control in the 1990s and has declared independence. Getting Abkhazia alone would increase the length of Russia’s Black Sea coast by more than 25 percent.

“Georgia will never give up a square kilometer of its territory,” Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili told a news conference alongside Germany’s Angela Merkel, the latest Western leader to visit Tbilisi and offer support for the country he has led on a pro- Western path.

“I expect a very fast, very prompt withdrawal of Russian troops out of Georgia,” Merkel said in a courtyard at Saakashvili’s official residence. She reiterated a Western promise that Georgia will eventually join NATO, but said she could not say when that would happen.

As Merkel spoke, Russian tanks and troops continued to control a wide swath of Georgia, including the main highway running through the country, the strategic central city of Gori, the western city of Senaki and the Senaki air base.

In the western town of Zugdidi, residents took to the streets to protest the Russian presence in Georgia. Demonstrators including politicians and Orthodox priests carried religious icons and sprinkled holy water as they marched, some holding red-and-white Georgian flags of pictures of Saakashvili.

“We are waiting for more support from other countries because this is not a war between Russian and Georgia, it’s a war between civilization and barbarism,” said Eldar Kbernadze, a member of Georgia’s parliament who was among the protesters.

A large banner hanging Sunday in front of the Parliament building in central Tbilisi read: “No war, Russia go home.”

On the outskirts of the city, hundreds of Georgian refugees tended to children, tried to wash near open taps and sought shelter in tents Sunday in a makeshift refugee camp.

Russian troops were entrenched on a hill after building ramparts around tanks and posting sentries near Igoeti, just 30 miles from Tbilisi.

The Russian checkpoint at the entrance to Gori was less fortified than in previous days. In the city, where buildings were blackened by fire from fighting or bombing, there was a light presence of Russian troops and a few tanks.

Marc Baldan, a surgeon from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which delivered some medicine and food in Gori, said the city’s hospital was functioning and that drugs for heart disease, hypertension and diabetes, unavailable during the conflict, had been delivered.

“Each day looks better,” he said. “But we still do not have the full picture.”

But as clusters of people gathered by aid vehicles in hopes of getting loaves of bread, others had even deeper worries.

“I do not know where my children are and you can imagine how I feel about it,” one Georgian woman named Manana told an AP television crew in Gori. She did not give her last name for fear of reprisals.

Saakashvili alleged that Russian forces, far from withdrawing, had moved closer to the capital Saturday and vowed to defend Tbilisi if necessary. He also accused Russia of ethnic cleansing and said Georgia would not accept the future presence of Russian peacekeepers.

Merkel supported Saakashvili’s contention that Georgia must not be broken up despite the Russian foreign minister’s insistence Thursday that Georgia could “forget about” regaining the two regions.

“Georgia is a sovereign state and the territorial integrity of the state must be provided for,” she said.

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Associated Press writers David Nowak, Steve Gutterman and Jill Lawless in Moscow, and Michael Fischer and Matti Friedman in Tbilisi, Georgia, contributed to this report.

(c) 2008 Telegraph – Herald (Dubuque). Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.