Russia starts withdrawal from Georgia amid conflicting reports

 

RUSSIA BEGINS WITHDRAWAL

The statement by Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn came amid uncertainty about whether Russia was fulfilling President Dmitry Medvedev’s promise to begin the pullout Monday. 

 

Nogovitsyn told a briefing Monday that "today, according to the peace plan, the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers and reinforcements has begun."

Soldiers in helmets inspected the boots of cars and asked drivers for identification on the main road from the capital Tbilisi to the central town of Gori, Reuters reported. Armored vehicles and tanks stood nearby in fields, covered by camouflage tarpaulins. Â

Medvedev declared on Sunday that troops, who stormed in after a failed Georgian attempt to retake the pro-Russian breakaway region of South Ossetia, would begin pulling out Monday.

The 10-day confrontation has killed about 200 Georgians, dealt a blow to the Georgian military, damaged the country's economy, disrupted road and rail links and drew Western criticism of Saakashvili's handling of the crisis.

Russia’s state-run news agency RIA Novosti, citing its own correspondent in Tskhinvali, reported that the withdrawal had got under way.

"After we got the order to pull our units out of South Ossetia, we began loading material and preparing to move out," the agency quoted a senior Russian officer in Tskhinvali as saying.

"But it needs to be understood that it cannot be done in a matter of minutes or hours," the officer said, referring to a full-scale pullout.

NO SIGNS

Georgia sees "no signs" that Russian forces are preparing to withdraw from its territory, interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP on Monday. 

 

"Unfortunately, we see no signs that the Russians are starting to pull out or even preparing to withdraw from Georgia," he said.

 

A senior U.S. official also told Reuters Monday there were no signs yet that a planned Russian pullout from the conflict zone in Georgia had begun.

 

"Thus far there isn't any evidence we've seen," the official said ahead of an emergency meeting of NATO foreign ministers on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

 

"Let's hope that this is a technical slowness in getting implemented... let's see the Russians begin to pull back. That's what we'd like to see, but we haven't seen it yet," the official said.

 

In a television address recorded for broadcast later on Monday, President Mikheil Saakashvili demanded Russia leave Georgian territory immediately, but also made a plea to mend fences.    Â

 

"I appeal to you that after your armed forces leave Georgian territory, to start serious thinking and discussions about further negotiations, a further search for ways (to conduct) relations in order not to sow discord between our countries for good," Saakashvili said in the broadcast which his press office made available to Reuters in advance.

 

"Let's not sow discord for future generations. I don't appeal to your mercy but I appeal to your pragmatism and simple common sense. I think the time to make the right decisions has come."

 

GENOCIDE ACCUSATIONS
Saakashvili's softer tones towards Moscow contrast strongly with the tough rhetoric both sides have used until now.

 

Each side has accused the other of attempted genocide. Russia says some 1,600 people were killed in the initial Georgian shelling of the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, while Georgia accuses Russian and irregular forces of leveling Georgian villages around Tskhinvali.

 

Russia's withdrawal is due to go ahead under a six-point ceasefire plan brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, acting on behalf of the European Union. The Russians have not set a deadline for its completion but say it depends on stability in Georgia.

 

The conflict has rattled the West, which draws oil and gas through pipelines across Georgian territory from the Caspian region; a route favored because it bypasses Russia.

 

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Medvedev to withdraw troops quickly. Russia must honor its pledge to start withdrawing its troops from Georgia, Rice said on Sunday, saying Moscow had broken earlier promises to pull out.

 

"I hope he intends to honor the pledge this time," Rice said of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on NBC's "Meet the Press".

 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel assured Saakashvili in Tbilisi that NATO remained ready to give membership to the ex-Soviet republic, as promised at a NATO summit in April, despite the conflict with Russia.

 

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will meet Monday to discuss a plan to send 100 extra observers to Georgia, according to the body’s Finnish chairman Alexander Stubb.

 

Sarkozy phoned Moscow on Sunday and, in an article for French newspaper Le Figaro on Monday, called for the withdrawal "without delay" of Russian troops from Georgia, adding: "This point is not negotiable."

HARDLINERS
Russian military analyst Pavel Felgengauer said hardliners in Moscow wanted the conflict to achieve Saakashvili's overthrow and the destruction of the Georgian army and would be disappointed with a lesser result.

He argued that the Georgian military, though it withdrew in the face of Russian advances, had escaped without serious casualties or materiel losses.

 

"For them (the hardliners), the strategic aim of the invasion was not achieved, so it was a defeat ... This creates problems in Moscow," he was quoted by Reuters as saying.

 

Powerful businessmen were, he said, also dissatisfied by big losses incurred on financial markets following the invasion and the danger of Western sanctions denying them access to technology for urgently needed modernization.

 

"They may not be against subduing the Georgians, but the question is, at what price?"

 

Georgia, he said, could now reckon with increased U.S. investment and support and a consequent strengthening of American influence and commitment in an area Moscow historically sees as its 'backyard'.

 

The conflict began on Aug. 7 when Georgia launched an attempt to retake South Ossetia, which broke with Tbilisi after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia struck back, pouring troops into South Ossetia and then occupying areas beyond the region, in the Georgian heartland.

 

The six-point peace plan sees their withdrawal from this 'core Georgia'. International contacts are under way to decide on a peacekeeping force for South Ossetia itself though, whatever Georgia's objections, it is likely to contain many Russians.