Georgian President Vows to Rebuild Army and Pursue Control of Enclaves

By C. J. CHIVERS and MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Published: August 25, 2008

TBILISI, Georgia — President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia said Sunday that he planned to rebuild his country’s shattered army, and that even after its decisive defeat in the war for control of one of Georgia’s two separatist enclaves he would continue to pursue a policy of uniting both under the Georgian flag.

“It will stay the same,” he said of his ambition to bring the enclaves, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, under Georgian control. “Now as ever.”

The upper house of Russia’s parliament, meanwhile, voted unanimously Monday to ask President Dmitri A. Medvedev to recognize the enclaves’ independence. The lower house was expected to hold a similar vote later in the day.

[…]

According to senior French officials who helped negotiate the cease-fire agreement, the Russians must pull all their troops back to positions before the crisis began on Aug. 7.

The Russian troops stationed in South Ossetia and Abkhazia before that date may stay, and may continue to send out patrols into a “security zone,” a thin buffer roughly five miles beyond the enclaves’ borders.

But the Russians are not allowed to set up fixed positions in the security zone — an agreement that Russia has not adhered to, Mr. Sarkozy said Friday in a telephone call with President Bush.

[…]

With the bulk of Russian troops now withdrawn to the enclaves or to Russian soil, Mr. Saakashvili described the war against South Ossetia and Russia — a military defeat that imperiled his government and threatens Georgia’s fragile economy — as a seminal moment that offered the seeds of political and national success.

In an interview in his office that stretched until nearly 2 a.m., Mr. Saakashvili said that Georgia had gained allies in the world and would embark upon a campaign of rebuilding.

He predicted continued American support and said that he spoke by phone with the presumptive Republican nominee for president, Senator John McCain, as often as twice a day, and that he was in regular contact with Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has been picked to run for vice president on the Democratic ticket.

He also said that the Bush administration had not communicated disappointment or signaled a decline in its support for him since he gave the order on Aug. 7 to attack Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital.

He said that while he might face pressures in the months ahead, as the effects of the war ripple through the economy, he said he expected to weather any troubles. “There has been tremendous solidarity,” he said.

The Kremlin has characterized Mr. Saakashvili as delusional and dangerous.

Sitting in his office as he discussed the effects of the war — tens of thousands of refugees; the scattering of a national army that abandoned its dead and its hardware on the battlefield; the loss of territory to Russia and the hardening of separatist sentiment in the enclaves — he seemed prepared to resume the policies that had set Georgia and Russia at odds.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/world/europe/26georgia.html?ref=world

Russian MPs back Georgia’s rebels

Russia’s upper house of parliament has unanimously backed the independence of Georgia’s two breakaway provinces - Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The vote on the issue in the Federation Council is due to be followed shortly in the lower house - the State Duma.

[…]

The Federation Council voted 130-0 to call on President Medvedev to support the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia after a brief debate on the issue at its extraordinary session.

South Ossetians demonstrate for independence in Tskhinvali on 21 August

The house speaker, Sergei Mironov, said the two regions had all the necessary attributes of independent states.

Both Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh and his South Ossetian counterpart, Eduard Kokoity, addressed the Russian lawmakers, urging them to recognise the independence of the two regions.

“It’s a historic day for Abkhazia… and South Ossetia,” Mr Bagapsh said, adding that Abkhazia would never again be part of Georgia.

Mr Kokoity thanked Russia for supporting South Ossetia during the conflict with Georgia, describing President Medvedev’s move to deploy troops as “a courageous, timely and correct” decision.

He said that South Ossetia and Abkhazia had more rights to become recognised nations than Kosovo that declared independence from Serbia earlier this year with support from the United States and much of the European Union.

Both houses of the Russian parliament are dominated by allies of President Medvedev and his Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7580386.stm