TBILISI, Georgia — Georgia on Wednesday accused Russian authorities of illegally detaining five Georgian fishermen and demanded their immediate release.
The Georgian Foreign Ministry said five men were detained Tuesday while fishing in Georgian territorial Black Sea waters off the town of Anaklia. It said the Russian authorities accused the men of illegal fishing.
"A chain of Russia's extremely dangerous and dirty provocations still continues, and it has acquired a clear form of hunting people," the ministry said in a statement.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said that Russian coast guard detained nine fishermen off the Black Sea coast of Abkhazia and handed them over to Abkhaz authorities. He said those detained lacked proper IDs and fishing permits.
Neither Russian nor Georgian officials offered any explanation of the differing figures.
Moscow has recognized Georgian breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent nations following a five-day Russian-Georgian war last year. Russia has deployed its troops to both regions, and Russia's coast guard also patrol Abkhazia's Black Sea coast.
Nicaragua and Venezuela are the only nations that have followed suit in recognizing of the two regions' independence. The U.S., the EU and the rest of the world consider them part of Georgia.
Georgia also accused the Russian troops in Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia of firing on a minibus that carried a four-year-old child to a hospital along with several other people. The ministry cited local residents as saying that several people were wounded during the incident that occurred early Wednesday. The claim could not be independently verified, and the Russian Foreign Ministry didn't comment on that.
Russia and Georgia fought a five-day war over South Ossetia and Abkhazia last year.
Russia recognized Georgia's breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent nations after the war. Nicaragua and Venezuela are the only nations that have followed suit. The U.S., the EU and the rest of the world consider them part of Georgia.
Posts tonen met het label Abchazia. Alle posts tonen
Posts tonen met het label Abchazia. Alle posts tonen
woensdag 11 november 2009
zondag 3 mei 2009
Security treaties between Russia and South Ossetia and Abkhazia
MOSCOW — Russian border guards on Saturday began taking up long-term positions along the boundaries of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, an arrangement that will probably mean sustained tension in the two breakaway Georgian territories.
Security treaties signed on Thursday in Moscow between Russia and the two territories called for joint patrols in South Ossetia and Abkhazia for an unspecified period along the boundaries that separate the enclaves from the rest of Georgia. The State Department expressed “serious concern” over the arrangement, saying it violated Georgia’s territorial integrity and broke commitments made in a cease-fire agreement reached last fall.
The territories were at the heart of a war last August between Russia and Georgia; the conflict raised tensions between Moscow and the West to a level not seen since the end of the cold war. Heavy Russian armor poured into both territories after Georgia attacked Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. Russia then officially recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as sovereign nations, despite protests from Europe and the United States, and promised to guarantee their security.
Russian troops have been at the territories’ border since August, but the security pact signed on Thursday makes their role formal and permanent. It grants Russia’s border guards, a division of the Russian Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., any land or buildings needed to patrol the area. It also grants Russian border guards many of the rights of Abkhaz and South Ossetian citizens.
In an interview, Abkhazia’s president, Sergei Bagapsh, said 500 Russian border guards — not Defense Ministry troops — would perform joint patrols alongside 300 Abkhazians until Abkhazia could train enough personnel to secure the 60-mile border.
He said Abkhazia had negotiated for some changes to the agreement, among them ensuring that guards at the crossing in the Gali region, which has a large ethnic Georgian population, would be Abkhaz rather than Russian.
“People will be going to the markets; you cannot stop life,” he said. “We don’t want to build a Great Wall of China between Abkhazia and Georgia.”
But Georgian authorities said the move to long-term postings was dangerous. Shota Utiashvili, a senior official in Georgia’s Interior Ministry, said that though Russian soldiers had been staffing checkpoints since August, he worried that F.S.B. units “might be more willing to stage operations” along the Georgian border.
He said Georgian authorities were watching to see how heavily fortified the border would be.
In a statement released on Friday, Georgia’s Foreign Ministry said Russia “once more draws a line between itself and the entire international community, and again brutally tramples on fundamental standards and principles of international law.”
Security treaties signed on Thursday in Moscow between Russia and the two territories called for joint patrols in South Ossetia and Abkhazia for an unspecified period along the boundaries that separate the enclaves from the rest of Georgia. The State Department expressed “serious concern” over the arrangement, saying it violated Georgia’s territorial integrity and broke commitments made in a cease-fire agreement reached last fall.
The territories were at the heart of a war last August between Russia and Georgia; the conflict raised tensions between Moscow and the West to a level not seen since the end of the cold war. Heavy Russian armor poured into both territories after Georgia attacked Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. Russia then officially recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as sovereign nations, despite protests from Europe and the United States, and promised to guarantee their security.
Russian troops have been at the territories’ border since August, but the security pact signed on Thursday makes their role formal and permanent. It grants Russia’s border guards, a division of the Russian Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., any land or buildings needed to patrol the area. It also grants Russian border guards many of the rights of Abkhaz and South Ossetian citizens.
In an interview, Abkhazia’s president, Sergei Bagapsh, said 500 Russian border guards — not Defense Ministry troops — would perform joint patrols alongside 300 Abkhazians until Abkhazia could train enough personnel to secure the 60-mile border.
He said Abkhazia had negotiated for some changes to the agreement, among them ensuring that guards at the crossing in the Gali region, which has a large ethnic Georgian population, would be Abkhaz rather than Russian.
“People will be going to the markets; you cannot stop life,” he said. “We don’t want to build a Great Wall of China between Abkhazia and Georgia.”
But Georgian authorities said the move to long-term postings was dangerous. Shota Utiashvili, a senior official in Georgia’s Interior Ministry, said that though Russian soldiers had been staffing checkpoints since August, he worried that F.S.B. units “might be more willing to stage operations” along the Georgian border.
He said Georgian authorities were watching to see how heavily fortified the border would be.
In a statement released on Friday, Georgia’s Foreign Ministry said Russia “once more draws a line between itself and the entire international community, and again brutally tramples on fundamental standards and principles of international law.”
zondag 5 april 2009
NATO urges Russia to pull out of breakaway regions
Strasbourg (AP): NATO reached out to Russia at its summit today, saying it wanted to work together against threats such as piracy and terrorism. But the alliance's insistence that Russia pull its troops from the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia risks meeting Kremlin resistance.
NATO leaders meeting on the French-German border sent the two-pronged message to Moscow, which sees the alliance as a throwback to a Cold War that ended nearly two decades ago.
Their choice of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO's new chief threw another potential wrench into the complicated relationship, as he is little loved in Russia.
"There is a shared view in NATO that we must cooperate with Russia," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said at the close of the summit. "We think this relationship can deliver more than it has up to now."
NATO leaders said they were ready to resume ministerial level meetings with Russia in the coming months, and hoped to work with Russia on fighting new threats including piracy and terrorism.
"Despite the disagreements we have now with it, Russia has a particular importance for us as a partner and neighbor," the NATO leaders said in a statement.
NATO leaders meeting on the French-German border sent the two-pronged message to Moscow, which sees the alliance as a throwback to a Cold War that ended nearly two decades ago.
Their choice of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO's new chief threw another potential wrench into the complicated relationship, as he is little loved in Russia.
"There is a shared view in NATO that we must cooperate with Russia," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said at the close of the summit. "We think this relationship can deliver more than it has up to now."
NATO leaders said they were ready to resume ministerial level meetings with Russia in the coming months, and hoped to work with Russia on fighting new threats including piracy and terrorism.
"Despite the disagreements we have now with it, Russia has a particular importance for us as a partner and neighbor," the NATO leaders said in a statement.
vrijdag 17 oktober 2008
Russia and Europe too soon to kiss and make up
Russia and Europe too soon to kiss and make up
Summary: The European Union should not give Russia a new partnership deal until it genuinely withdraws from Georgia.
RUSSIA announced this week that, just as it promised, it had pulled all its troops in Georgia back to the two disputed territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Many European Union leaders were swift to praise the Kremlin for meeting the conditions it agreed with France’s Nicolas Sarkozy some six weeks ago—and almost as quick to suggest a return to business as usual.
A majority now want to start talks in November on a new “partnership and co-operation agreement”. Their none-so-subtle message is: forget about the pesky Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, who was anyway responsible for starting the war on August 7th, and attend instead to the more urgent task of repairing relations with our biggest energy supplier.
The West needs to keep talking to Russia about many things, notably efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and further reductions in Russia’s and America’s own nuclear arsenals.
Yet it would be wrong to heed calls from the likes of Germany, Italy and their allies to start talks now on a new partnership agreement, as if the Georgian war had never happened. The main reason for this is that the troop withdrawal is largely bogus.
The Russians have stationed almost 8,000 troops in the two enclaves.
Villages in South Ossetia and beyond have been brutally cleansed of their Georgian inhabitants. And Abkhaz forces have retaken the Kodori Gorge, previously controlled by the Georgians. This does not come close to a pull-back to pre-August 7th positions, which is what the EU originally stipulated before embarking on a new partnership agreement. Moreover, the Russians still refuse to allow any of the 200-odd ceasefire monitors deployed by the EU into the two disputed territories.
Some regard Georgia and the Caucasus as small, faraway and so unimportant. They are, on the contrary, a strategically vital region that could play a critical role in the EU’s future energy security. And, as Mr Saakashvili has often said, if the Russians think they can escape unpunished for the invasion and occupation of parts of his country, that could embolden further adventurism. The war was popular with ordinary Russians: the popularity of President Dmitry Medvedev and the prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has risen even as financial markets have tanked. There are plenty of Russian citizens and passport-holders in such neighbours as Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltics whom the Kremlin might easily find a sudden need to “protect”, just as it did in South Ossetia.
Besides, this is not just about the Caucasus. Both Mr Medvedev and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, have muttered belligerent things about Russia’s neighbours and the West in general. Its short war with Georgia seems to have confirmed Russia’s prejudice that it can cow its neighbours—including some members of the EU—by threatening or even using force. The Russians continue to treat the supply of energy as another weapon in their armoury. There can be no genuine partnership with the EU while Russia thinks this way.
Neighbourhood watch
The EU should be urgently seeking to put more substance into the neighbourhood policy that defines its dealings with Russia’s near-abroad. For all his annoying arrogance, Mr Saakashvili is a democratically elected president who has liberalised Georgia’s economy and cracked down on corruption. Ukraine’s democracy may sometimes resemble a tragicomedy (it is currently preparing for its third parliamentary election in the space of three years), but it is vigorous for all that. Even the autocratic Armenia and Azerbaijan may now look more to the West than they did before the war in Georgia. Belarus, widely known as Europe’s last dictatorship, is shifting its ground a little—as the EU recognised this week when it decided to relax its visa ban on the country’s leaders.
The EU could help these countries by offering financial aid, more open trade deals and easier visa conditions. It should also hold out to them prospect of eventual membership. This is less provocative than the notion of letting any of them into NATO, which has surely receded into the future after the Georgian war. But as experience in the Balkans has shown, the lure of eventual EU membership is a good way to foster liberal, market-based democracy and to defuse territorial and ethnic disputes. As for Russia, its help is still needed on some vital global issues. But for the EU to go ahead with new “partnership” talks now would send a message of astounding pusillanimity. At the very least, Russia needs first to live up to its promises to withdraw properly from Georgia and to let the EU’s monitors into the disputed enclaves.
Summary: The European Union should not give Russia a new partnership deal until it genuinely withdraws from Georgia.
RUSSIA announced this week that, just as it promised, it had pulled all its troops in Georgia back to the two disputed territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Many European Union leaders were swift to praise the Kremlin for meeting the conditions it agreed with France’s Nicolas Sarkozy some six weeks ago—and almost as quick to suggest a return to business as usual.
A majority now want to start talks in November on a new “partnership and co-operation agreement”. Their none-so-subtle message is: forget about the pesky Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, who was anyway responsible for starting the war on August 7th, and attend instead to the more urgent task of repairing relations with our biggest energy supplier.
The West needs to keep talking to Russia about many things, notably efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and further reductions in Russia’s and America’s own nuclear arsenals.
Yet it would be wrong to heed calls from the likes of Germany, Italy and their allies to start talks now on a new partnership agreement, as if the Georgian war had never happened. The main reason for this is that the troop withdrawal is largely bogus.
The Russians have stationed almost 8,000 troops in the two enclaves.
Villages in South Ossetia and beyond have been brutally cleansed of their Georgian inhabitants. And Abkhaz forces have retaken the Kodori Gorge, previously controlled by the Georgians. This does not come close to a pull-back to pre-August 7th positions, which is what the EU originally stipulated before embarking on a new partnership agreement. Moreover, the Russians still refuse to allow any of the 200-odd ceasefire monitors deployed by the EU into the two disputed territories.
Some regard Georgia and the Caucasus as small, faraway and so unimportant. They are, on the contrary, a strategically vital region that could play a critical role in the EU’s future energy security. And, as Mr Saakashvili has often said, if the Russians think they can escape unpunished for the invasion and occupation of parts of his country, that could embolden further adventurism. The war was popular with ordinary Russians: the popularity of President Dmitry Medvedev and the prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has risen even as financial markets have tanked. There are plenty of Russian citizens and passport-holders in such neighbours as Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltics whom the Kremlin might easily find a sudden need to “protect”, just as it did in South Ossetia.
Besides, this is not just about the Caucasus. Both Mr Medvedev and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, have muttered belligerent things about Russia’s neighbours and the West in general. Its short war with Georgia seems to have confirmed Russia’s prejudice that it can cow its neighbours—including some members of the EU—by threatening or even using force. The Russians continue to treat the supply of energy as another weapon in their armoury. There can be no genuine partnership with the EU while Russia thinks this way.
Neighbourhood watch
The EU should be urgently seeking to put more substance into the neighbourhood policy that defines its dealings with Russia’s near-abroad. For all his annoying arrogance, Mr Saakashvili is a democratically elected president who has liberalised Georgia’s economy and cracked down on corruption. Ukraine’s democracy may sometimes resemble a tragicomedy (it is currently preparing for its third parliamentary election in the space of three years), but it is vigorous for all that. Even the autocratic Armenia and Azerbaijan may now look more to the West than they did before the war in Georgia. Belarus, widely known as Europe’s last dictatorship, is shifting its ground a little—as the EU recognised this week when it decided to relax its visa ban on the country’s leaders.
The EU could help these countries by offering financial aid, more open trade deals and easier visa conditions. It should also hold out to them prospect of eventual membership. This is less provocative than the notion of letting any of them into NATO, which has surely receded into the future after the Georgian war. But as experience in the Balkans has shown, the lure of eventual EU membership is a good way to foster liberal, market-based democracy and to defuse territorial and ethnic disputes. As for Russia, its help is still needed on some vital global issues. But for the EU to go ahead with new “partnership” talks now would send a message of astounding pusillanimity. At the very least, Russia needs first to live up to its promises to withdraw properly from Georgia and to let the EU’s monitors into the disputed enclaves.
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