Kremlin announces that South Ossetia will join ‘one united Russian state’

The Times
August 30, 2008

Tony Halpin in Moscow

The Kremlin moved swiftly to tighten its grip on Georgia’s breakaway
regions yesterday as South Ossetia announced that it would soon become
part of Russia, which will open military bases in the province under an
agreement to be signed on Tuesday.

Tarzan Kokoity, the province’s Deputy Speaker of parliament, announced
that South Ossetia would be absorbed into Russia soon so that its
people could live in `one united Russian state’ with their ethnic kin
in North Ossetia.

The declaration came only three days after Russia defied international
criticism and recognised South Ossetia and Georgia’s other separatist
region of Abkhazia as independent states. Eduard Kokoity, South
Ossetia’s leader, agreed that it would form part of Russia within
`several years’ during talks with Dmitri Medvedev, the Russian
President, in Moscow.

The disclosure will expose Russia to accusations that it is annexing
land regarded internationally as part of Georgia. Until now, the
Kremlin has insisted that its troops intervened solely to protect South
Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgian `aggression’.

Interfax news quoted an unidentified Russian official as saying that
Moscow also planned to establish two bases in Abkhazia. Sergei Shamba,
Abkhazia’s Foreign
Minister, said that an agreement on military
co-operation would be signed within a month.

The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that agreements on `peace,
co-operation and mutual assistance with Abkhazia and South Ossetia’
were being prepared on the orders of President Medvedev. Abkhazia said
that it would ask Russia to represent its interests abroad.

Georgia announced that it was recalling all diplomatic staff from its
embassy in Moscow in protest at the continued Russian occupation of its
land in defiance of a ceasefire agreement brokered by President Sarkozy
of France. The parliament in Tbilisi declared Abkhazia and South
Ossetia to be under Russian occupation.

Gigi Tsereteli, the Vice-Speaker, dismissed the threat of South Ossetia
becoming part of Russia, saying: `The world has already become
different and Russia will not long be able to occupy sovereign Georgian
territory.

`The regimes of Abkhazia and South Ossetia should think about the fact
that if they become part of Russia, they will be assimilated, and in
this way they will disappear.’

Lado Gurgenidze, the Prime Minister of Georgia, scrapped agreements
that had permitted Russian peacekeepers to operate in the two regions
after wars in the early 1990s. He called for their replacement by
international troops.

Vyacheslav Kovalenko, Moscow’s Ambassador to Georgia, described
Tbilisi’s decision to sever relations as `a st
ep towards further
escalation of tensions with Russia and the desire to drive the
situation into an even worse deadlock’.

Russia attacked the G7 after the United States, Britain, France,
Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan condemned its `excessive use of
military force in Georgia’. In a joint statement, they had called on
Russia to `implement in full’ the French ceasefire agreement.

The Foreign Ministry said that the G7 was `justifying Georgian acts of
aggression’ and insisted that Moscow had met its obligations under the
six-point agreement.

Having been rebuffed on Thursday by China and four Central Asian
states, Russia will seek support next week from the Collective Security
Treaty Organisation (CSTO) for its recognition of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia. The CSTO comprises Russia and the former Soviet republics of
Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The signing of the military agreement with South Ossetia will take
place the day after an emergency summit of European Union leaders to
discuss the crisis. The French presidency of the EU said that sanctions
against Russia were not being considered, contradicting an earlier
statement by Bernard Kouchner, the Foreign Minister.

Russia told the EU that any sanctions would be damaging to both sides.
Andrei Nesterenko, a Foreign Ministry official, said: `We hope that
common sense will prevail over emotions and
that EU leaders will find
the strength to reject a one-sided assessment of the conflict . . .
Neither party needs the confrontation towards which some countries are
being energetically pushed by the EU.’

Russia also lashed out at Nato, saying that it had `no moral right’ to
pass judgment on the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The
Foreign Ministry said: `Further sliding to confrontation with Russia
and attempts to put pressure on us are unacceptable, as they can entail
irreversible consequences in the military-political climate and in
stability on the continent.’

The US confirmed that the flagship of its Sixth Fleet, the USS Mount
Whitney, would deliver aid to Georgia next week. Two other warships are
moored off Georgia’s Black Sea port of Batumi, and Russia has ordered
its fleet to take `precautionary measures’.

Mr Medvedev has accused the US of shipping weapons to Georgia along
with aid, a claim dismissed as `ridiculous’ by the White House.