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Georgia Awaits Russia's Signature On Cease-Fire

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The Associated Press

Published: August 16, 2008

TBILISI, Georgia - Georgia's president grudgingly signed a potential truce with Russia on Friday, even as he denounced the Russians as invading barbarians and accused the West of all but encouraging them to overrun his country. A stone-faced Condoleezza Rice, standing alongside, said Russian troops must withdraw immediately from their smaller neighbor.
President Bush talked tough, too, accusing the Russians of "bullying and intimidation," but neither he nor Rice said what the United States might do if Russia ignored them.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's press office had no information Friday night on whether he had signed the cease-fire agreement. Russia's foreign minister assured Rice later that his country would implement the deal "faithfully," a U.S. official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Rice's conversation was private, said Russia was likely to sign the deal today.

Even as Rice stood with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in a show of solidarity, he asked, "Who invited the trouble here? Who invited this arrogance here? Who invited these innocent deaths here?"

Shaky and near tears after a difficult, nearly five-hour meeting with Rice, Saakashvili answered his own question: "Not only those people who perpetrate them are responsible, but also those people who failed to stop it."

Rice let that pass, focusing instead on the demand that Moscow immediately withdraw its forces.

"With this signature by Georgia, this must take place and take place now," she declared.

There was no immediate clue to the Russians' intentions a week after their tanks and bombers attacked Georgia in retaliation for Georgia's attempt to retake a disputed province by force.
Russian troops allowed some humanitarian supplies into the strategic city of Gori, but otherwise continued their blockade.

The cease-fire document sets no specific penalties or deadlines. It contains concessions to Russia that Saakashvili obviously found hard to swallow. Russia could retain peacekeeping forces in the separatist region of South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, and the forces would have a broader mandate in South Ossetia.

Even if Russia fully complies with the cease-fire, the Bush administration says there will be more consequences. Bush's advisers are settling on penalties that would be intentionally modest, such as continuing to exclude Russia's foreign minister from discussions among his counterparts in gatherings of the world's leading economies.

The idea is to give Moscow the diplomatic cold shoulder while offering face-saving leeway for Russia to turn away from a mentality the West sees as throwback to its empire days. Russia would then have motivation, and some wiggle room, to seek inclusion in Western economic, political and security institutions.

Russian withdrawal from Gori, in the center of Georgia proper, would be a major sign that Russia is not trying to hold permanent sway in Georgia or topple its enthusiastically pro-American government. By holding Gori, Russia holds the small country's only major east-west highway and effectively slices Georgia in half.

The peace pact was worked out this week by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and both sides had said they agreed to it.

DEVELOPMENTS

•Russia warned Poland on Friday that it is exposing itself to attack - even a nuclear one - by hosting a U.S. missile interceptor base on its soil, delivering Moscow's strongest language yet against the plan. American and Polish officials stuck firmly by their deal, signed Thursday, for Poland to host a system that Washington says is meant to block missile attacks by rogue nations like Iran.

•The president of the U.N.'s highest court issued an urgent appeal for restraint Friday until the tribunal meets next month to hear Georgia's petition seeking a halt to Russian military actions against civilians. The International Court of Justice said it will hear arguments from both sides Sept. 8-10 in The Hague on Georgia's request to intervene in its dispute with Russia over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

•Russia's invasion of Georgia has unsettled the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, which, like Georgia, has applied for membership in NATO but now fears that the United States could do little to prevent similar Russian action in that country.

"If the West swallows the pill and forgives Russia the Georgian war, the invasion of 'peacekeeping tanks' into Ukraine will just be a matter of time," Oleksandr Suchko, the research director of the Kiev-based Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, wrote on Ukrainska Pravda, a leading online news site.

A wire report

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