TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

President: Georgia's Army To Be Rebuilt

ADVERTISEMENT

The New York Times

Published: August 25, 2008

TBILISI, Georgia - President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia said Sunday that he planned to rebuild his country's shattered army, and that even after its decisive defeat in the war for control of one of Georgia's two separatist enclaves he would continue to pursue a policy of uniting both enclaves under the Georgian flag.

"It will stay the same," he said of his ambition to bring the two enclaves, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, under Georgian control. "Now as ever."

Also Sunday, a U.S. Navy destroyer delivered 55 tons of humanitarian aid for war-weary Georgia as residents staged a second day of protests against Russian forces still occupying the country.

The USS McFaul, the first of at least three U.S. ships bringing relief supplies to ally Georgia, anchored one mile off the Black Sea coast of the southwestern city of Batumi, where crews used barges to ferry ashore bottled water, nonperishable food, blankets, diapers, cooking utensils and other items.

Stephen Guise, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, said that contractors and aid agencies working with the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is overseeing the effort, would carry the supplies by road to war-affected areas in western Georgia. U.S. military planes have already delivered $13 million in aid to Tbilisi, which is closer to the heaviest fighting of the two-week conflict.

Russian officials didn't respond immediately to the arrival of the U.S. vessel, but they've criticized humanitarian deliveries by other NATO countries, including Spain, Germany and Poland, as fueling tensions in the Black Sea.

Nearly 130,000 Georgians were forced from their homes during two weeks of often-heavy clashes between Russian and Georgian forces in the tiny former Soviet republic, according to U.N. estimates.

Also on Sunday, France called an emergency summit meeting of the European Union for Sept. 1 to discuss "the future of relations with Russia" and aid to Georgia, according to a statement from the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

The meeting was framed as a response to Russia's failure to meet the terms of the cease-fire agreement that Sarkozy negotiated between Moscow and Tbilisi.

Information from McClatchy-Tribune was used in this report.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT