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27Aug08
NATO ships cause alarm in Moscow
Russian commanders Wednesday said they were growing alarmed at the number of NATO warships sailing into the Black Sea, conceding that NATO vessels now outnumbered the ships in their fleet anchored off the western coast of Georgia.
As focus turned to the balance of naval power in the sea, the leader of the separatist region of Abkhazia said he would invite Russia to establish a naval base at the deep-water port of Sukhumi.
And in a move certain to pique Russia, at a time when tensions over Ukraine's predominantly Russian province of Crimea are already elevated, the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yushchenko, said he would open negotiations with the authorities in Moscow to raise the rent on the Russian naval base at Sevastopol.
The Untied States is pursuing a delicate policy of delivering humanitarian aid on military transport planes and ships, to illustrate to the Russians that they do not fully control Georgia's airspace or coastline.
The policy has left American and Russian naval vessels maneuvering in close proximity off the western coast of Georgia, with the Americans sailing near the southern port of Batumi and the Russians the central port of Poti.
Apparently testing Russian assertions that their forces have opened the port of Poti for humanitarian aid, the U.S. Embassy in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, said a coast guard cutter, the Dallas, would try to dock there Wednesday, well within a zone controlled by the Russian military during the war.
Russian soldiers had occupied the port and sunk Georgian ships in the harbor. And Russian officials said their forces were now out of the city but occupying positions at checkpoints just to the north. Russian ships are also patrolling off the coast.
The Dallas, however, docked instead at Batumi, to the south. It was carrying 34 tons of humanitarian aid. Georgian military officials said the other port might have been mined, The Associated Press reported.
In Moscow, the naval maneuvering was clearly raising alarms. Russian commanders said the buildup of NATO vessels in the Black Sea violated a 1936 treaty, the Convention of Montreux, that they maintain limits to three weeks the time non-coastal countries can sail military vessels on the sea.
Colonel General Anatoli Nogovitsyn, the deputy head of the Russian general staff, told a briefing in Moscow that under the agreement, Turkey, which controls the straits of Bosphorus and Dardanelles, must be notified 15 days in advance before military ships sail into the sea, and that warships cannot remain longer than 21 days.
"The convention stipulates a limited number of vessels," he said. "That is, the same state cannot deploy a certain group without any limit."
He said any sustained NATO mission would require rotating ships through the straits.
The total number of NATO ships in the sea was unclear Wednesday.
A spokesman at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe, in Mons, Belgium, said four NATO warships were in the Black Sea on a previously scheduled exercise called Active Endeavor, training in anti-terrorist and anti-pirate maneuvers. Other NATO countries, however, could have ships in the sea not operating under NATO command.
"Obviously, there are other NATO-affiliated nations out doing things," the spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Web Wright, said. "But I can't speak for those nations."
The U.S. guided missile destroyer McFaul, for example, docked over the weekend in Batumi to deliver humanitarian aid. A report on the Russian news agency Interfax cited this ship, along with three others, as operating in the sea, though it was unclear whether it referred to vessels taking part in the previously scheduled exercise.
Separately on Wednesday, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said in speech to the French diplomatic corps that no one wanted another Cold War and called on Russia to pull back its forces to positions they held before the current conflict with Georgia.
"The military forces which have not yet pulled back to the lines they held before the hostilities must move without delay," he said. "Nobody wants to go back to the time of the Cold War. NATO is not an adversary but a partner of Russia," he said. "As for the European Union, it seeks to build with this country a close and positive relation. It is for Russia today to make a fundamental choice."
Sarkozy called Russian recognition of the enclaves "simply unacceptable."
Earlier, the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, was harsher. "We cannot accept these violations of all international law, of security and cooperation accords in Europe, United Nations resolutions and, for the first time in a long time, the taking of territory by an army in a neighboring country."
Russia, he said, could move toward other targets. "It's very dangerous. There are other objectives that one can suppose are the objectives of Russia, in particular Crimea, Ukraine, and Moldova."
Earlier, foreign minister Bernard Kouchner was harsher. "We cannot accept these violations of all international law, of security and cooperation accords in Europe, United Nations resolutions and, for the first time in a long time, the taking of territory by an army in a neighboring country."
Russia, he said, could move toward other targets. "It's very dangerous. There are other objectives that one can suppose are the objectives of Russia, in particular Crimea, Ukraine and Moldova."
NATO called Wednesday on Russia to reverse its decision to recognize the enclaves and urged Moscow to respect Georgia's territorial integrity.
The alliance "condemns the decision of the Russian Federation to extend recognition to the South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions of Georgia and calls upon Russia to reverse its decision," the 26 NATO ambassadors said in a joint statement.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany spoke with President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia by phone Wednesday morning and demanded the "immediate implementation" of the EU cease-fire negotiated by Sarkozoy, a German government statement said, according to an AP report.
Later, Merkel's cabinet agreed to send up to 15 military observers to Georgia as part of an expanded OSCE mission aimed at enforcing a fragile cease-fire in the region, Reuters reported.
Also Wednesday, the Georgian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Nato Chikovani, said her country was recalling all but two diplomats from its embassy in Moscow, the AP reported.
Steven Erlanger contributed reporting from Paris.
Group of Seven condemns Russian move
The Group of Seven rich nations on Wednesday issued a stinging condemnation of Russia's decision to recognize Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Reuters reported quoting U.S. officials.
"We, the foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom, condemn the action of our fellow G8 member," the group said in a joint statement released by the U.S. State Department. "We deplore Russia's excessive use of military force in Georgia and its continued occupation of parts of Georgia."
[Source: The International Herald Tribune, Paris, Fra, 27Aug08]
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