Кавказ и міровая война
- Ф.Ф. Воронов
14.08.2008 22:46
Цитата из "Нью-Йорк Таймс" от 13 августа (выделение мое):
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Of gripping importance to the Georgian government now, Western diplomats and Georgian officials said, is whether the agreement gave the Russians room to interpret the occupation of Gori and a zone around the city as agreed upon in the cease-fire, thus allowing them to control the main east-west road through the country, isolating the capital, Tbilisi, from the Black Sea coast and cutting off important supply routes.
In response, the United States began sending troops to Georgia to oversee aid to the capital on Wednesday.
France brokered the deal as the country holding the rotating presidency of the European Union. Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France, visited Tbilisi and left with a four-point cease-fire plan.
The conditions were: no use of force; cease hostilities; open humanitarian corridors in the conflict areas; and Georgian and Russian troops withdraw to their pre-war positions.
In meetings in Moscow, the Russians insisted on two additional points, the Georgian official said, and Mr. Sarkozy carried these demands to Georgia, landing shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday and driving straight to the Parliament building to meet Mr. Saakashvili.
Negotiating from a position of strength, the Russians demanded the fifth point, allowing their troops to act in what was termed a peacekeeping role, even outside the boundaries of the separatist enclaves where the war began, with an understanding that later an international agreement might obviate this need.
The vague language of the fifth point allows Russian peacekeepers to “implement additional security measures” while awaiting an international monitoring mechanism.
The Georgians asked that a timeline be included in the language for these loosely defined Russian peacekeeping operations, but the Georgian official said Mr. Sarkozy’s response was that without an agreement, a Russian tank assault on the capital could ensue: “He was saying it’s a difficult situation. He said, ‘Their tanks are 40 kilometers from Tbilisi. This is where we are.’ ”
Mr. Sarkozy then tried to call Dmitri A. Medvedev, the Russian president, to amend the point with a timeline. The adviser, who was present, said the Russians did not take the call for two hours. When the French president got through, the proposal was rejected.
In the sixth point, both sides agreed that the status of the contested separatist regions would be pursued the future.
A senior American official familiar with the talks also said that the Russians insisted on the fifth point about the so-called additional security measures. “I think it was presented as, ‘You need to sign on to this,’ ” the official said of Mr. Sarkozy’s appeal to the Georgians. “My guess is it was presented as, ‘This is the best I can get.’ ”
French and Russian officials were unavailable to comment on the Georgian official’s account of how the negotiations unfolded.
Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Saakashvili announced the agreement around 2 a.m., and Russian tanks and troops moved toward Gori soon afterward. The Russians cited the fifth provision, saying they had identified a threat to the local population that justified their troops assuming a peacekeeping role in the city.
A spokesman for President Medvedev said they took up positions around the town to protect locals from South Ossetians bent on revenge against ethnic Georgians for what Russia says was Georgia’s wholesale destruction of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, and its inflicting of civilian casualties. It said it was also there to dispose of weapons left unattended by Georgian troops.
And, in an apparent swipe at the retreat of the Georgian army, which received supplies from the United States, the Russian general commanding the town, Vyachislav N. Borisov, noted in particular the risk if looters seized what he said were thousands of abandoned, American-made assault rifles at a military base. General Borisov spoke at an impromptu news conference on a road congested with Russian military trucks and armored vehicles outside Gori on Wednesday evening.
Russian troops have the right to take any actions necessary to prevent hostilities, said a Kremlin spokesman, Alexei Pavlov, including inside Georgia.
He said the fifth point of the agreement included this right but added that Russia would consider such actions justified “without any agreement at all.”
One senior American official said the fifth point in the cease-fire agreement could lead to further Russian advances, including feints on Tbilisi, to create panic and undermine support for Mr. Saakashvili. This official said international acceptance of Russians as peacekeepers in Georgia “is absurd at this point.”
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