MILITARIZING GEORGIA AGGRAVATES TENSIONS IN CAUCASUS – CSTO PA

Interfax
Nov 24 2008
Russia

By aiding Georgia to build up its military potential, the United States
is turning that country into a hotbed of tensions in the Caucasus,
says a report by the Defense and Security Commission of the Collective
Security Treaty Organization’s Parliamentary Commission.

The report was released after members of the Commission visited the
region, Vitaly Strugovets, spokesman for the CSTO Secretariat, told
Interfax-AVN on Saturday.

"The deputies believe that Georgia is actually evolving into the main
destabilizing factor in the Caucasus region as it is building up its
military potential with U.S. assistance and provoking aggression in
relation to South Ossetia and Abkhazia," Strugovets said.

"The United States and its NATO allies’ active strategic course
to further reach into the Caucasus region, given its important
geographical location, large reserves of hydrocarbons and routes of
transporting them" rank among the main reasons why the political
situation in the region has deteriorated, as members of the CSTO
Parliamentary Assembly see them, he said.

"The situation is being aggravated by the current socio-political
instability in Georgia over the unpredictable steps, made by the
country’s political leadership last summer," Strugovets said.

Among the factors which the deputies think has a negative impact
on the military-political situation in the region, are the impasse
in resolving the Karabakh problem, setbacks in the Middle East
settlement, the tensions surrounding Iran and destabilization in
Iraq. "The deputies stated that the military-political situation in
the Caucasus region of the CSTO’s collective security, remains tense
with a trend towards further complication," he said.