08 August 2008
United States Urges Halt to Hostilities in South Ossetia
Calls for restraint by both Russia and Georgia
Washington -- The United States has called on Russia and Georgia to end the recent sharp escalation in fighting that has broken out in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia.
"We call on Russia to cease attacks on Georgia by aircraft and missiles, respect Georgia’s territorial integrity, and withdraw its ground combat forces from Georgian soil," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said August 8 in Washington. "The United States is working actively with its European partners to launch international mediation. We urgently seek Russia’s support of these efforts."
Georgian forces began a heavy bombardment of the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali August 7. Russia, which supports South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, in their struggle against Georgia, is reported to have responded militarily to the Georgian offensive, with press reports quoting Georgian President Mikheil Saakasvili as saying that Russian armored forces had entered South Ossetia.
Tensions began to escalate August 1 when fighting between Georgian government troops and South Ossetian separatists resulted in casualties. Both Russia and Georgia have traded accusations in the past regarding excessive intervention in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, both of which declared independence from Georgia in the early 1990s and where international peacekeepers have tried to maintain order.
Full-fledged armed conflict between South Ossetia and Georgia lasted from January 1991 to June 1992, when representatives of the two sides and Russia agreed to a cease-fire known as the Sochi Agreement. The agreement created a peacekeeping force in South Ossetia under Russian command and composed of troops from Russia, Georgia and the Russian autonomous republic of North Ossetia. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitors the cease-fire and promotes negotiations between the parties in conflict.
Georgia is confronting a second ethnically based secessionist movement in another part of its territory, Abkhazia, with sporadic conflict between Georgia and Abkhaz forces since 1992. As in Ossetia, Russian soldiers are stationed in Abkhazia as a peacekeeping force as part of a 1994 cease-fire agreement between the Georgian government and Abkhaz separatists.
In a worrying development, Abkhaz opposition officials have expressed opposition to what has been for years at the center of a negotiated solution -- a pledge by Georgia not to use force in the region and a pledge by Abkhazia that some 250,000 internally displaced Georgians could return to Abkhazia.
“That is the absolutely essential bargain that must be struck to be able to move a peace process forward,” said Matt Bryza, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, in a July 21 interview with Radio Free Europe. Bryza added that he hoped recent statements out of the Abkhaz capital of Sukhumi and Moscow were just posturing.
Abkhazians worry that returning Georgians would overwhelm politically and culturally a small Abkhaz population of about 55,000.
“Their cultural rights need to be preserved, and of course they need to retain some kind of disproportionate political role in Abkhazia, just as we’ve negotiated in Bosnia for minorities there,” Bryza said.
The first step, he said, is that the two sides need to engage in direct talks without preconditions.
The United States previously has expressed concern about what Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried called in recent congressional testimony “unremitting and dangerous pressure” from Russia against Georgia. In recent years, Russia has closed its common border with Georgia, suspended transport links and placed embargoes on certain Georgian agricultural products. Although Moscow lifted some of these economic and transport embargoes earlier this year, Fried said Russia intensified political pressure on Georgia through a number of actions creating a de facto official relationship with both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
On April 16, for example, then-President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian government ministries to develop closer ties with their counterparts in the two breakaway regions.
Russian military pressure against Georgia increased even before the latest round of hostilities. Fried said that on April 20 a Russian fighter jet shot down a Georgian unmanned aerial vehicle that was flying over Georgian airspace in Abkhazia. Russia also sent airborne combat troops to Abkhazia that same month as part of its peacekeeping force, and dispatched construction troops there the following month to repair a rail link to Russia, in each case without the consent of the Georgia government.
“The increase of Russian pressure against Georgia comes in the context of Georgia’s trans-Atlantic aspirations, particularly its attempts to secure a Membership Action Plan (MAP) from NATO,” Fried said. Although there was no consensus reached at the NATO summit held this April in Bucharest, Romania, about extending a MAP invitation to Georgia and Ukraine, Fried said the United States and most other NATO members strongly supported such a move.
Noting that Georgia has thoroughly reformed its military and today is the third-largest troop contributor in Iraq, with 2,000 soldiers on the ground there, Fried said NATO should base its MAP decision for Georgia on these factors and not allow Russia “to exercise a veto over an alliance decision.”
In the case of both Ossetia and Abkhazia, the United States has adopted a policy that supports the territorial integrity of Georgia and calls for comprehensive settlement of the separatist conflicts through peaceful means.
