PEACE & SECURITY | Creating a more stable world
13 August 2008
Rice Urges Russia to Cease Military Operations in Georgia
Secretary travels to France, Georgia
Washington -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says Russia must end military operations in Georgia immediately as it agreed to in a cease-fire agreement worked out by the European Union just days ago.
"This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed," Rice said at a State Department briefing August 13.
The Russians must respect U.S. military humanitarian aid efforts getting under way soon, Rice added just hours before leaving on a diplomatic mission to France and then to Georgia.
Earlier at a White House briefing August 13, President Bush announced he was sending Rice to Paris to consult with the French government about the cease-fire agreement it reached with the Russians, and then to Tbilisi, Georgia's capital city, to convey continuing U.S. support. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, acting for the European Union, and Finish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, acting for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), traveled to Tbilisi and to Moscow to reach a cease-fire accord.
Bush also ordered Defense Secretary Robert Gates to launch a U.S. military-led humanitarian relief mission to Georgia by air and by sea.
Rice warned Russia that failure to respect a cease-fire agreement in war-torn Georgia
"will only serve to deepen the very strong, growing sense that Russia is not behaving like the kind of international partner that it has said it wants to be."
Rice said she had just spoken with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and he welcomed Bush's statement and the plan to send in humanitarian assistance.
From the outset, Rice said, the issues surrounding the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia could have been resolved peacefully and without resorting to an invasion. Fighting erupted August 7 in South Ossetia and escalated as Russian combat forces swept into Georgia.
Russia's actions are well beyond efforts to protect its forces and peacekeepers, she said.
"Russia engaged in activities that could not possibly be associated simply with the crisis in South Ossetia," she said. "Bombing civilian targets, bombing targets outside of the zone of conflict -- some of which have civilian uses -- the activities in Gori, the activities at Poti, destruction of Georgian infrastructure, these are hardly moves that are related to South Ossetia," she said.
