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Georgia Not Alone in Row With Russia

Posted on: Tuesday, 26 August 2008, 15:00 CDT

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has stressed that Georgia has the firm support of the West in its confrontation with Russia over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. He was speaking during a live address to the nation broadcast live by Georgian Public TV shortly after Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev's announcement that Moscow would recognize the regions' independence on the heels of the Georgian-Russian war.

"Our response to Russia's unimaginably impudent aggression and unimaginably impudent lawlessness is calm, unity, development and becoming stronger. Our task - and I have appealed to all leaders whom this concerns - is Georgia's accelerated integration with NATO, so that past mistakes are not repeated, Georgia's accelerated integration with the European Union and Georgia's accelerated integration with Europe. We are a part of the democratic world and the democratic world must fully nuzzle Georgia and the whole of Georgian society to its bosom," Saakashvili said.

He stressed that Russia's decision was "completely unlawful" and would yield "no legal consequences either for Georgia or for the rest of the world".

He noted the sharp international reaction against Russia's decision, noting that "all civilized countries in the world without exception" had condemned Medvedev's decision and reaffirmed support for Georgia's territorial integrity.

"I have devoted my entire presidency up to now to ensure that Georgia would not be alone in this decisive moment," he stressed, adding:

"Now, restoring Georgia's territorial integrity and protecting Georgia's freedom is no longer a task for Georgia itself, nor is it even a matter of Georgian-Russian relations. This is a matter between Russia and the rest of the civilized world."

He said Russia had made "unimaginable strategic mistakes" and damaged its standing in the international community through its offensive in Georgia."

He said Russia "failed to bring Georgia to its knees through military aggression, failed to break our people, expel Georgia's government, undermine Georgia's fundamental values and make Georgia disappear from the map".

He again compared Russia's actions in Georgia to Nazi Germany's imperialist moves in central and eastern Europe and the USSR's advance on eastern Europe under Stalin in the middle of the 20th century.

He said Georgia had received "serious signals" of support and promises for reconstruction programmes from its Western allies and said Georgia's task now was to be "more European than ever before".

"Our main task today is to be stronger than ever before, to be calmer and more united than ever before, to be more civilized and more European than ever before so that the people who wanted to destroy our civilization, who wanted to undermine our political choice, who wanted to dismember Georgia and trample it under foot do not entertain the illusion for even one second that this could ever be possible.""We will no longer tread the path to our future freedom, to our future European choice alone. We will tread along it together with our friends and together with our friends, we will establish our place in Europe, the world, and, most importantly, in all Georgian villages and towns - Tskhinvali, Sukhumi - and of course we will peacefully reunite Georgia and fully revive Georgia," he concluded.

Source: BBC Monitoring Newsfile

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