US VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY STARTS EX-SOVIET STATE TOUR
Moscow News
Sept 5 2008
Russia
US Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday arrived in the Azerbaijani
capital Baku for talks on energy, his first stop on a tour of
ex-Soviet nations.
Cheney touched down in Baku at about 10:00 am (0500 GMT), an AFP
correspondent travelling with him reported.
His brief tour of the region would also see him offer support to US
allies Georgia and Ukraine, amid chilly relations with Russia over
its military conflict with Georgia. He would also attend an economic
forum in Italy.
Cheney was scheduled later Wednesday to have talks with Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev, whose country sits on substantial oil and
gas reserves and is also part of a major corridor for energy pipelines.
The Georgia leg of the trip was being seen as a key sign of support
for the US ally after Russian tanks rolled into its smaller neighbour
in early August followed by a five-day war over the Moscow-backed
rebel region of South Ossetia.
A Russian security official says U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is
seeking U.S. access to oil and gas during a trip to the resource-rich
Caucasus.
Nikolai Patrushev says the goal of Cheney’s visit to Azerbaijan,
Georgia and Ukraine is to trade U.S. support for energy supplies.
He says the U.S. had to ensure these countries had "corresponding
regimes" in order to make that happen.
Patrushev is the head of Russia’s powerful presidential Security
Council, and is in the Armenian capital of Yerevan for a meeting of
a Moscow-led bloc called the Collective Security Treaty Organization.
Patrushev said Wednesday that the seven-member bloc had unanimously
backed Russia’s actions in its short war with Georgia last month.Russia
has withdrawn some forces but left others deep inside Georgian
territory, serving in what Moscow describes as a peacekeeping
mission. Tbilisi has labeled them an occupying force.
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