Russia, Georgia in thorny talks over bases’ withdrawal
By HENRY MEYER

AP Worldstream
Mar 23, 2005

Russia and Georgia held thorny negotiations in Moscow on Wednesday
on the withdrawal of Russia’s two Soviet-era military bases from its
small southern neighbor.

Georgia, where a pro-West leadership took power last year, is keen to
assert the impoverished Caucasus Mountain state’s independence from
its former imperial master and has been pushing Moscow to hand back
the bases within two years.

Russia has said it needs at least three to four years, or up to a
decade, to complete the pullout. It is also demanding compensation.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Tuesday the cost of
withdrawing from the military installations would be US$250-US$300
million (Aâ~B¬191-Aâ~B¬229 million).

The head of the Russian delegation at Wednesday’s talks, Igor Savolsky,
said the disagreements between the two sides were not huge but were
“fundamental,” the Interfax news agency reported.

Georgia’s Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili, who has dispatched a
deputy foreign minister for the two-day negotiations, said in Tbilisi
on Tuesday that she hoped an agreement could be reached.

The ITAR-TASS news agency quoted an unnamed Russian diplomat as saying
that Moscow insisted on assurances that Tbilisi would not host bases
from other countries.

A Georgian minister last week said that Tbilisi was willing to
guarantee that NATO troops would not be stationed on its territory,
which would give the alliance a foothold along Russia’s southern
frontier.

But on a more contentious note, the diplomat said that Russia also
wanted to set up a joint anti-terrorist center at one of the bases _
a demand categorically rejected by Tbilisi, which sees it as a fig-leaf
for a continued Russian military presence in Georgia.

Russian observers have said that Russia is concerned that pulling out
all its forces from Georgia could put at risk its base in neighboring
Armenia, one of Moscow’s closest allies in the region. Armenia does
not share a border with Russia and all Russian equipment and personnel
have to transit Georgian territory to get there.

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