OPEN EUROPE’s press summary was sent out earlier to you. I have now trawled the sources quoted and feel that the following three add significant extra information! xxxxxxxxxxxx cs
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LE FIGARO 13.8.08 EXTRACTS RUSSIA WANTS TO REOPEN DISCUSSIONS ON LEGAL STATUS OF SOUTH OSSETIA (La Russie veut rediscuter le statut de l'Ossétie du Sud) The head of the Russian diplomatic service has added a fiat to the peace plan agreed last night. (Alors que Moscou avait accepté de modifier le texte en retirant la mention du «statut futur» de l'Ossétie du Sud et de l'Abkhazie, le chef de la diplomatie russe, Sergueï Lavrov, a insisté mercredi sur la nécessité de rediscuter du «statut» des territoires séparatistes.) This was after Moscow had agreed to leave out any mention of the future status of S Ossetia and Abkhazie. [Slippery lot - make an agreement and they go back on it at once -cs]
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REUTERS 13.8.08 EXTRACTS (- - - - - - - -) Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who visited Georgia for the pan- European Council of Europe human rights watchdog, cast doubt on whether Moscow would allow European monitors into areas it held. "There are no signs of the Russians letting in anyone else," he said. "I don't really see it happening -- at the moment the Russians are firmly in control." Bildt called the Russian military action "the gravest breach of the commitments of the Council of Europe". But many ministers, led by Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmeier, declined to apportion blame and stressed that Russia's cooperation was vital to help resolve the conflict. The fighting highlighted EU rifts over how to deal with Moscow which have dogged ties since the bloc's enlargement to embrace ex-communist central European states in 2004. Poland and the Baltic states, wary of a resurgent Russia using its muscle to dominate neighbors, have condemned what they call Moscow's aggression against Georgia and want the EU to take a tough line. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the EU should decide next month "whether or not and how" to continue talks on closer ties with Moscow. "The international community will want to ensure that the message goes out that force is not the right way to take forward these difficult issues," Miliband said on arrival. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Petras Vaitiekunas said there must be consequences for Russia's "unacceptable and unproportional" use of force. (- - - - - - - -)
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FINANCIAL TIMES 13.8.08 Leading Article Living with the Russian bear Russia has, for the moment, more or less ended its assault on Georgia. Diplomacy, led by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French and current European Union president, has entered the arena to try to separate and reconcile the combatants, But Vladimir Putin, re-emerging as Russia’s real leader over the past week, has achieved nearly all of Moscow’s war aims, in the face of a feeble western response. Russia looks in no mood to negotiate anything. This is going to be a difficult crisis to manage. Russia has seized full control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two separatist enclaves it sponsors on Georgian territory. It has damaged and humiliated the US and Israeli-trained Georgian army, and re- established its writ in the Caucasus. The likelihood of Nato now embracing Georgia and Ukraine – and committing to defend them – has receded, despite Tuesday’s assertion by Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, its general secretary, that the alliance’s pledge to admit them eventually still stands. Mr Sarkozy arrived in Moscow with a plan for a truce, Russian commitment to Georgia’s territorial integrity, a return to each side’s positions before Georgia attacked the South Ossetian capital last week, and a peacekeeping force under the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Russia pre-empted him on the ceasefire but is unlikely to give too much on the rest. Moscow argues that just as the west acted to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, and eventually separated the province from Serbia, so Russia acted to protect its nationals and peacekeepers in South Ossetia from “genocide”. Unlike in Kosovo, the world has, so far, seen no proof of these alleged massacres. The Russian peacekeepers, moreover, acted more as fireraisers than as firefighters. But, absurd though Moscow’s mimetic argument is, the west should call its bluff. If Russia’s real worry is the humanitarian situation in the enclaves, an OSCE peacekeeping mission should present it with no problem. The future of the disputed territories must be decided by negotiation, not by land-grabs. The EU and the US have limited leverage with Russia; giving Georgia’s erratic leadership an IOU on Nato entry has not increased it. Yet the west must engage with Moscow and robustly test its intentions. Russia’s membership of the G8, its wish for strategic partnership with Nato and the EU and entry to the World Trade Organisation – all part of its self-image as a world power – should be made conditional on its behaving as a responsible power. That is the least that anxious former Soviet vassals can expect. =============================
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