TORNIKE GORDADZE: RUSSIA’S MAXIMUM PLAN IS TO MAKE RUSSIA ITS SATELITE

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
14.05.2009 17:36 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "The war between Georgia and Russia had a brader
areal," Tornike Gordadze, Director of Caucasus Studies Centre
under French Institute of Anatolian Studies, said during the
conference on "Observing Security in South Caucasus: Stability and
Transformation". According to Mr. Gordadze, the conflict started
on August 7, 2008. "The war was just an episode of Russian-Georgian
conflict which had begun much earlier and probably continues to date,"
he added.

"The war can cerrtainly be viewed in a broader context. There were some
activists who insisted on Russian-Georgian conflict being in process
for 4 centuries," Mr. Gordadze noted, emphasizing that both parties’
policies proposed very strange and non-academic interpretations of
Russian-Georgian history. "One the one hand, RF Ministers argued that
their country had created the Georgian state. Georgian politicians,
one the other hand, argued that Georgia always led heroic battles
with Russia."

"Russia’s minimum plan was to make Georgia a neutral neighbor not
belonging to any geopolitical group, and its maximum plan was to make
the country its satelite," Gordadze said, noting that Georgia has been
Russia’s satelite since 1994-95, atlhough this led to nothing good.

Russian military bases were deployed in Georgia. The appointed
ministers were representatives from Russia but that didn’t produce
a positive result either. This too, caused Georgia to change its
geopolitical orientation. Certainly, war was not the only political
tool. There were other tools such as energy resources, Georgia’s
internal conflicts, pressure upon diaspora in 2006, as well as econimic
pressure," Mr. Gordadze said, adding that tensity in Russian-Georgian
relations was observed under President Shevardnadze. Gordadze finds
Georgia the only CIS country conflicting with Georgia on different
issues.

Since the start of 2008, all this was likely to lead to war. Russia’s
reaction to Western countries’ recognition of Kosovo was so harsh
that its further steps in Caucasus were evident. And that will
be a response to Caucasus and first of all, to Georgia," he said,
stressing that on March 6, a few weeks after Kosovo’s reognition,
Russia denounced CIS Treaty on Blockading Unrecognized States. This
was followed by the Bucharest Summit (held early in April), where
Georgia was denied NATO membership. War could have been avoided had
West been more active. But it’s also thanks to West that the war
ended so soon," the Georgian politician said, noting that West has
changaed its attitide to Russia following the war.