TENSION INTENSIFIES BETWEEN MOSCOW AND TBILISI... Russia on September 29 stepped up attempts to involve international organizations in its ongoing run-in with Georgia.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on RTR television that Russia insists that the UN Security Council examine the detention of four Russian military officers in Georgia, RBK news agency reported on September 29. According to Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili, the four are military intelligence service (GRU) officers who are suspected of carrying out spying activities in Georgia.
Merabishvili said a group of five people, led by Anatoly Sinitsyn, organized a terrorist act in the Georgian city of Gori on February 1, 2005, RBK reported.
Lavrov said Russia also calls on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and NATO to pay attention to developments in Georgia.
Tbilisi announced September 29 that espionage charges have been officially filed against the four, who were arrested on September 27, RIA Novosti reported. Georgia's Interior Ministry has also confirmed the release of a fifth officer, Mayak Radio reported. FF
...AS RECALLED AMBASSADOR DEFENDS OFFICERS. Ambassador Vyacheslav Kovalenko, who was recalled on September 28 by the Russian Foreign Ministry in protest, was quoted by RIA Novosti on September 29 as saying that the charged officers have only been in Georgia for three months and the espionage allegations are "unfounded."
Russia on September 28 also evacuated some embassy staff and all family members over what it said were safety concerns and stopped issuing visas to Georgian citizens (see Georgia section below). FF
SENIOR RUSSIAN OFFICIALS CRITICIZE GEORGIA... Senior officials, including Defense Minster Sergei Ivanov and Foreign Minister Lavrov, have strongly criticized Tbilisi's decision to arrest the officers.
"Gangsterism in Georgia has taken on a state scale," Ivanov was
quoted by Russian news agencies as saying on September 28. Ivanov called the charges "absurd" and demanded the immediate release of the officers.
He said Tbilisi's decision was aimed at deflecting attention from Georgia's own internal problems and force Russia to withdraw its peacekeepers. (((Or, in the more accurate new parlance of deliberate regional disintegration and re-absorption, "peacekeepers."))) Russia maintains two military bases in
Georgia and also has peacekeepers (((" "))) in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Georgian authorities meanwhile said the men arrested are not protected by diplomatic immunity, and their handover to Russia was ruled out. "These people must be tried in Georgia," Georgian Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili was quoted as saying by RBK. FF
...AS OBSERVERS ARE CONCERNED. Observers have noted that the current row is the most severe yet in a series of political clashes this year between the Russian government and the pro-Western administration of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, the "Financial Times" noted on September 29.
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said on RTR that Georgia's decision could not be seen as anything else but "another show of anti-Russian policy."
While Russia has pledged to close one of its two military bases in 2007 and the other a year later, more important may be the presence of Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Saakashvili last week accused the Kremlin of "gangster
occupation" of the two provinces in a speech before the United
Nations.
(((Perhaps we should simply find-and-replace the older term "peacekeeper" worldwide with the newer term "gangster" and see if this clarifies contemporary politics any.)))
"The Moscow Times" on September 29 quoted Ivan Safranchuk,
director of the Moscow office of the Washington-based Center for
Defense Information, as saying that with the referendum on Kosova's independence pending, (((
