USING GEORGIA TO TARGET RUSSIA
By Stephen Lendman
Al-Arab
13/08/2008 10:46:04
After the Soviet Union’s 1991 dissolution, Georgia’s South Ossetia
province broke away and declared its independence. So far it
remains undiplomatically recognized by UN member states. It’s been
traditionally allied with Russia and wishes to reunite with Northern
Ossetes in the North Ossetia-Alania Russian republic. Nothing so far
is in prospect, but Russia appears receptive to the idea. And for
Abkhazia as well, Georgia’s other breakaway province. The conflict
also has implications for Transdniestria, the small independent
Russian-majority part of Moldova bordering Ukraine, and for
Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.
Tensions arose and conflict broke out in late 1991. It resulted in
a 1992 ceasefire to avoid a major confrontation with Russia, but
things remained unsettled. Moscow maintains a military presence in
the province as well as in Abkhazia and exerts considerable political
and economic influence.
Throughout the 1990s, intermittent conflict erupted but nothing on
the order of early August 7 when Georgia acted with aggression against
the S. Ossetian capital, Tskninvali.