RUSSIA-GEORGIA: NO COMPROMISE ON ARMY BASES YET

MOSCOW, May 17 (RIA Novosti) – Russia has made a concession to
Georgia to agree to pull out its military bases before 2008, announced
Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili.

As things really are, the Parties have not yet come to such an
understanding, said Alexander Yakovenko, Russia’s Foreign Ministry
spokesman.

“Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, and Salome Zurabishvili,
his Georgian counterpart, met in Warsaw to discuss Russian blueprints,
which appoint a deadline for Russian base withdrawal at the end of
2008. There was no understanding to finish the pullout before that
year,” stressed the diplomat.

The Foreign Ministers agreed on the two countries’ delegations for
military issues to go on with discussing the Russian blueprints. The
delegations are to meet quite soon in Moscow or Tbilisi.

Russia presently has two military bases in Georgia – in Batumi,
Adzharia, on the Black Sea coast, and in Akhalkalaki, Javakhetia –
Georgian area along the Armenian frontier.

Abkhazia, unrecognized republic in Georgia, is eager to host Russian
bases with their pullout, said Sergei Bagapsh, its leader.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress