Translated material
Secretary General's anger
NATO will cooperate with Georgia
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who arrived in Tbilisi yesterday to attend the opening of a visiting meeting of the Alliance Council , caused confusion in the minds of Georgian political scientists. On the eve of the visit, in an interview with the Financial Times, the Secretary General said that he did not like the agreements between the European Union and Russia , which were reached in Moscow on September 8 during negotiations between the Presidents of France Nicolas Sarkozy and Russia Dmitry Medvedev. “If the Russians remain in South Ossetia with so many armed forces, I do not consider this a return to the status quo,” explained Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.The NATO Secretary General also did not like the statement of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about the deployment of 7.6 thousand Russian military personnel in South Ossetia and Abkhazia - equally in each of the republics. “Let me tell you, this is a very hard pill to swallow,” said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. At yesterday's briefing, he confirmed that NATO recognizes the territorial integrity of Georgia, inviting Russia, which was the only one , along with Nicaragua, to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia at that moment, to withdraw this decision.
The European Union is behaving much more restrainedly in the Georgian direction. Yesterday, EU High Representative for Foreign Policy and Security Javier Solana announced in Brussels his readiness to send European observers to Georgia (topic continued on page 5) .
“It is difficult to say what exactly the dissatisfaction of the NATO Secretary General will lead to. This is a clear signal from Russia,” Shalva Pichkhadze, head of the Tbilisi-based Georgia in NATO organization, told Vremya Novostei. Another Georgian political scientist, Ramaz Sakvarelidze, in an interview with Vremya Novostey, suggested that NATO, “in search of its place in the new European realities, is trying to seize the initiative from the EU.”
NATO spokesman James Appathurai tried to smooth over the conflict, saying that the secretary general was not at all opposed to the agreement on the withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia. According to him, Scheffer only expressed concern about how the Russian side is implementing this agreement. Appathurai stressed that Scheffer "never criticized the EU, and he certainly did not criticize this agreement."
Georgia and NATO “step by step will expand and deepen cooperation,” the alliance’s secretary general said yesterday. Opening a visiting meeting of the NATO Council together with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Scheffer again emphasized that Russia used “disproportionate force” against Georgia. After this, the ambassadors of 26 countries, asking the press to leave, began discussing how to help Georgia strengthen security.
According to Vremya Novostey, a demonstration project could be assistance in restoring the air operations center in Tbilisi on Mount Mahata. This center was bombed by the Russian Air Force. NATO members will visit it today. “NATO support is very important for Georgia, Georgia is not alone,” President Saakashvili noted with pleasure. “Our relationship must become even stronger.”
After this, Scheffer and Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze signed an agreement on the creation of a NATO-Georgia commission. Until December, when the alliance returns to considering the issue of providing Tbilisi and Kyiv with a Membership Action Plan, the commission will have to deal with specific areas of cooperation. “This is a significant agreement that involves a transition to a new, more intensive relationship between NATO and Georgia,” the alliance’s secretary general said after the signing ceremony. However, he avoided a direct answer to the question of when exactly Tbilisi will be accepted into NATO: “I cannot give an exact date. Georgia must meet the criteria of our organization, and there can be no compromises here.”
Mikheil Saakashvili told the NATO Secretary General and other guests about “aggression” and “occupation” by Russia, which “planned to remove the democratically elected government of Georgia and change the country’s foreign policy course.” Lately, the Georgian president has been regularly and persistently saying that “the war was not Georgia’s choice,” and blaming Russia for starting it. Perhaps this is due to the increasingly frequent remarks in the West that the first shot was on the conscience of the Georgian side. Saakashvili promises to provide evidence that this is not so.
This evening, after seeing off NATO members, the president is scheduled to speak to Georgian parliamentarians. It is likely that a commission will be created to study the causes of the August tragedy, during which Georgia, according to official data, lost 370 military, police and civilians killed (yesterday the Georgian Foreign Ministry denied a report from a source in Russian military intelligence about the death of about 3 thousand military personnel during the conflict army and other security forces). In search of the culprits, Saakashvili, according to local media, may make serious personnel changes in the government.
Meanwhile, the Georgian opposition is holding consultations with former parliamentary chairman Nino Burjanadze. We are talking about creating a broad coalition specifically demanding new elections. Republicans added their voices to the statements of the United Opposition, the New Right and Labor about the desirability of such a development of events on Monday. The recent OSCE final report on the elections in Georgia contained very critical comments, which will be the subject of discussion between the opposition and the NATO Secretary General during today's meeting.
Yesterday it became known that the ranks of the opposition may be joined by a famous person. Former Prime Minister of Georgia (held this post in 2005-2007) Zurab Nogaideli, from the pages of the Tbilisi publication “Kviris Palitra” (“Palette of the Week”) sharply criticized the current composition of the Cabinet of Ministers for “incompetence”, predicting grave consequences for the Georgian economy from the war with Russia and did not rule out that he would return to politics as an oppositionist. On the same day, another former ally of Saakashvili, ex-Minister of Defense, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Economic Development Irakli Okruashvili, gave an interview to the Georgian publication Asaval-Dasavali. The Parisian political emigrant promised to return to his homeland within a year to facilitate the “voluntary resignation” of his former patron.