Britannia Radio

No wonder NATO came up with a feeble response with Kouchner
effectively in charge of the meeting for the EU! Shameful cowardice.

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INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE 20.8.08
French foreign minister sees limits of Western power

By Steven Erlanger

PARIS: France has no illusions about the aggressive new Russia, says
the foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, but it also has few illusions
about what can realistically be done to keep Moscow in line and make
it withdraw its troops from Georgia.

After an emergency meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels,
Kouchner said Tuesday that France was "very disappointed" with the
Russian failure so far to pull its troops out of Georgia, as it
agreed to do in a cease-fire deal he helped negotiate with President
Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

France, as the current president of the European Union, has listened
to both sides, Kouchner said. "But three times Medvedev has said they
are starting the withdrawal, and they have not. We cannot accept this
kind of blindness, not accepting international law and their own
words." These events seemed to be undermining Medvedev's authority,
Kouchner said.

Kouchner, who flew to Kabul on Tuesday night after 10 French soldiers
were killed by the Taliban there, said that the French, like the
Germans, Italians, Spanish and others, argued in Brussels to keep up
relations with Russia.

"We asked others not to stop relations between NATO and Russia," he
said. "We have to talk to them. But if they don't implement their
promises, we have to react and stand up strongly."

Still, he said, "We need firmness, not threats. We must not threaten
them because it will not work. Because everyone knows we are not
going to war."

In conversations Monday and Tuesday evenings, Kouchner made it clear
that France would insist that Medvedev keep his promises to pull back
Russian troops to their positions before the Georgian crisis erupted
less than two weeks ago.

"The red line for us is Russia maintaining an occupation of Georgia,"
Kouchner said, adding that Russia "must live up to its word," moving
all units back to the positions they held before the fighting
started. While there is a security zone beyond South Ossetia in which
Russian "peacekeepers" already stationed there can patrol, Kouchner
said, "the zone is very small."

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Kouchner, acting on behalf of
the European Union and after consulting with Washington, went to
Georgia and Moscow early in the conflict to negotiate a truce that
requires both sides to return to their positions. Sarkozy called
Medvedev on Sunday to threaten consequences if Russia went back on
its word.

During the Sarkozy-Medvedev meetings in Moscow, which Putin attended,
Kouchner said, Putin was tough in his language and angry with the
Georgians, but "Medvedev was not apologetic at all, but very clear,
very frank."

Kouchner said that Sarkozy told Medvedev: "You're a new leader,
you're very young, you must not be attacked as a liar, you have to
fulfill your promises, and if you give us your word, you must respect
that."

But the crisis over Georgia is no new Cold War, Kouchner said, and it
is not akin to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, as
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has insisted.
"We are not back to a Cold War, and I don't want this language to
come back," Kouchner said. As for the 1968 analogy, he said, "it's
not true - both Russia and Georgia came out of the Soviet Union and
are moving toward democracy in their own ways." [or “We’ll roll over
and find excuses whichever country you invade next” -cs]

The main threat in a globalized world is the "return of nationalism
and violence," [The invassion of Georgia was hardly non-violent! -
cs] Kouchner said, in English and French. "I don't want to consider
the relationship with Russia like a confrontation, block against
block."

But he also expressed some understanding that Russia "feels besieged
completely by NATO" and that Moscow has legitimate interests. "I
consider realistically that yes, they are tough," he said. "This is a
great country coming back to the first rank in the concert of
nations, and they want to play as they used to play, as a great
country."
"We don't want to pour oil on the fire," he added, saying that the
Europeans want a return to the status quo ante and then a new
relationship with Russia, not a new confrontation.

As the president of the EU, France is working on a common energy
policy as a priority - a vital issue in dealing with Russia, which
dominates the supply of energy, especially natural gas, to many
European countries. Paris is trying to organize a central authority
to buy energy for the entire Union, the way Europe shares electricity
in an emergency.

And, Kouchner said, France is now working at the United Nations and
at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to put
foreign monitors on the ground in both South Ossetia and Abkahzia to
reinforce the cease-fire, if it ever if fulfilled.