Russia says started Georgia troop withdrawal
Washington, 18 August (IranVNC)—Russia had begun to pull out its troops from Georgia, a senior defense official today said, but doubts remain over whether Moscow will fully carry out its pledge to withdraw.
By: IranVNC
Published: Monday, August 18, 2008
13:45GMT—9:45AM/EST
RUSSIA – GEORGIA – WITHDRAWAL
Washington, 18 August (IranVNC)—Russia had begun to pull out its troops from Georgia, a senior defense official today said, but doubts remain over whether Moscow will fully carry out its pledge to withdraw.
“Russia has finished the operation on halting Georgia’s aggression against South Ossetia,” Reuters quoted Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy head of the Russian military’s General Staff, as saying in a news conference today.
He continued: “The pull-out of peacekeeping forces started today.”
Under a French-brokered peace deal, both Russia and Georgia vowed to pull their troops back to the positions they held before the fighting erupted on 7 August.
But Russian troops remained stationed near Georgia’s capital, Tblisi, where they have set up checkpoints along a major highway, Reuters reports.
And the secretary of Georgia’s National Security Council, Kakha Lomaia, today said he saw no sign of a Russian withdrawal.
“The Russian general [Vyacheslav Borisov] promised last night to start the pullout at 10 a.m., but so far there is no sign,” Reuters quoted Lomaia as saying.
Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev, who agreed to withdraw troops yesterday in a telephone call with France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, today warned against any aggression against Russians in Georgia.
“If anyone thinks that they can kill our citizens and escape unpunished, we will never allow this,” Reuters quoted him as telling World War Two veterans in Russia’s city of Kursk.
He added: “We have all the necessary resources, political, economic and military. If anyone had illusions about this, they have to abandon them.”
Amid international condemnations of Russia’s military offensive in Georgia, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov last week told reporters that Moscow had no choice but to take military action in Georgia, likening its response to that of the U.S. after the attacks by al-Qaida on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001.
He also said that Moscow may change its stance on the U.S.-led effort to halt Iran’s nuclear program, because of US military support for Georgia.
Russia will “think twice” about supporting more sanctions against Iran, Ivanov said, noting that Russian citizens had been “killed by the Georgian army with American weapons, American ammunition and American instructors preparing for this war,” Bloomberg reported.
For his part, Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili today called for talks with Russia once troops have completed their withdrawal, urging “a further search for ways [to conduct] relations in order not to sow discord between our countries for good,” Reuters quoted Saakashvili as saying on Georgian television.
Tensions between Russia and Georgia erupted on 7 August when Georgian troops launched an attack on the Russian-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia. Russia responded with a military offensive that has expanded into other parts of Georgia.
The U.S. and European Union have pushed Russia to abide by the withdrawal agreement, but have expressed skepticism that it will be completed quickly.
Sources: Reuters, Associated Press, Bloomberg
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