Georgia, Russia resume talks on withdrawing Russian bases
AP Worldstream
May 23, 2005
MISHA DZHINDZHIKHASHVILI
Georgia and Russia resumed negotiations Monday on withdrawing
Soviet-era Russian bases from the Caucasus Mountains country, as
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would not tolerate being
pressured in the talks.
The two countries have been unable to agree on a timetable for the
withdrawal of the bases _ a source of growing tension as Georgian
President Mikhail Saakashvili and his Western-oriented government seek
to shake off Russian influence.
As a Russian delegation arrived in Tbilisi, Putin warned Georgian
officials against putting pressure on Moscow in the talks, saying in
televised remarks from Moscow that “there is nothing that would
require an instantaneous withdrawal of the troops.”
Georgia last week imposed sanctions against the bases in a bid to have
Moscow speed up the withdrawal, limiting visas to Russian soldiers and
placing additional controls on the shipment of equipment and cargo to
and from the bases.
“Such a pressured way of conducting negotiations seems ungrounded to
me,” Putin said in Moscow.
Putin hinted that Russia had its own means for pressuring its former
satellite states, by urging Russian energy companies to charge world
market prices for supplies instead of the discounted rates offered to
former Soviet republics.
“We need to build relations with foreign partners in the sphere of
energy supplies on market conditions,” Putin said, but added that
“economic sanctions do not always prove effective in achieving
political goals.”
Georgia has insisted the bases be out by January 2008, but Russia
wants more time to prepare infrastructure to house the returning
troops and equipment.
Georgian officials appeared ready for a compromise,
however. Parliament speaker Nino Burdzhanadze told Kviris Palitra
newspaper that Georgia may accept having the bases withdrawn in the
course of 2008, as Moscow has suggested.
“It is not crucial whether the bases will leave before Jan. 1, 2008,
or in May of that year,” she was quoted as saying in Monday’s edition.
Russia’s special envoy leading the delegation, Igor Savolsky, denied
speculation that the two sides would be discussing the issue of
compensation for the bases’ withdrawal. Moscow previously insisted on
several hundred million dollars (euros) in payment.
“There has not been and there will be no talk on compensation,”
Savolsky told reporters upon arriving at the Tbilisi airport. “The
sides have agreed that they will seek additional external financial
resources.”
Savolsky also said that some of the troops would be relocated to
Armenia, an ex-Soviet republic that is a close regional ally to Russia
and where Moscow has a military presence. Most of the troops in
Georgia, however, will be moved to Russia, he said.
Separately on Monday, Saakashvili opened a new customs checkpoint on
the Georgia-Azerbaijani border. The checkpoint was built under a
U.S.-financed program, which envisages building several
others. Saakashvili voiced hope that similar checkpoints would soon
operate on the borders with Abkhazia and South-Ossetia, two breakaway
provinces that Tbilisi hopes to bring into the fold.