Britannia Radio

  27.8.08
France accuses Russia of ethnic cleansing
PHILIPPA RUNNER
Talk of "war" and "ethnic cleansing" hit European TV channels on 
Tuesday (26 August) as France and Russia debated Moscow's hard 
backing of rebel groups in Georgia. But plans for next week's EU 
summit and new EU-Russia energy links remain unaltered for now.

"We fear a war and we don't want one," French foreign minister 
Bernard Kouchner said on the France 2 television station, after 
Russia gave formal recognition to Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia and 
South Ossetia regions earlier in the day. "If it's hot, we don't want 
it."  [That'll scare Putin! -cs]

The minister showed a map of South Ossetia and pointed to the town of 
Akhalgori, saying: "Tonight, Russian troops are sweeping through it, 
pushing Georgians out and over the border. It's ethnic cleansing."

In a separate interview on France's LCI channel, Russian President 
Dmitry Medvedev dared the EU to impose diplomatic sanctions at next 
week's EU summit. "If they want a degradation of relations, they will 
get it," he said. "The ball is in the European camp."

"We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a new Cold 
War," the president also said on the Russia Today TV channel. On the 
Arabic Al-Jazeera network he spoke of using "military means" against 
a future US missile base in Poland.

Meanwhile, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov accused NATO 
members of rearming Georgia. "They are even starting to supply new 
types of weapons, restoring the military infrastructure that was used 
in the aggression," he said, Ria Novosti reports.

The rhetoric coming from Poland and Georgia was no less harsh, with 
Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski telling Polish daily 
Dziennik Russia will "again lose" in a confrontation with the "10 
times richer" West.
"The end of the revival of Russia's imperialism has started," 
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said, calling for Europe to 
impose a travel ban on Russian leaders and their families, while 
claiming he has "serious signals" that the crisis will speed up 
Georgia's integration with NATO and the EU.

Business as usual?
Germany continued to sound a calmer note throughout the day,  
[They've got interests in a joint pipeline, haven't they? -cs] 
however, indicating that suspension of EU-Russia treaty talks is 
still not on the cards. "We will not solve conflicts if we do not 
talk to each other," Chancellor Angela Merkel said on a visit to 
Lithuania, DPA reports.

Ms Merkel's trip to the Baltic states and Sweden is aimed at 
promoting a new Germany-Russia gas pipeline - Nord Stream - which 
Germany calls a "strategic European project," but which the former-
communist EU states fear will strengthen Russia's energy leverage 
against eastern Europe.

Meanwhile, French EU presidency officials quietly brushed aside a 
joint proposal by Poland, Sweden and the Baltic countries to invite 
the fiery Mr Saakashvili to the EU summit on Monday. "The idea did 
not meet with much enthusiasm," a Polish diplomat told PAP.

Russia's recognition of the rebel enclaves will make the EU meeting 
more "complicated," Dutch Green MEP Joost Lagendijk commented. "With 
this, it will be more difficult for the moderates to say: 'We should 
not alienate Russia'," he told AFP.

Kosovo parallel
With Russia continuing to draw parallels between South Ossetia, 
Abkhazia and Kosovo - which has been recognised 46 countries 
worldwide - individual Belarusian MPs were the only non-Russian 
entities to back Moscow in its recognition of the two rebel regions 
so far.
"I'm sure that Belarus will become one of the first countries to 
recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia," Belarus lower house delegate 
Aleksei Ostrovsky said, BelaPAN reports.

But Minsk remained quiet on Wednesday morning, with EU diplomats 
noting that President Alexander Lukashenko is currently trying to 
improve relations with Brussels to offset Russia's influence on his 
eonomically-fragile dictatorship.

The Shanghai Co-operation Organisation [China, Russia, Kazakhstan, 
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan security alliance] is to meet 
in Tajikistan to discuss the Georgia issue on Thursday.

But Moscow's traditional allies have also taken a back seat in the 
conflict for now, amid an EU push to offer Central Asia new ways of 
breaking Russia's monopoly on its transit of oil and gas to Europe.