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Last Updated: Oct 28th, 2008 - 17:57:18 |
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian senators urged the Kremlin to recognise two rebel regions of Georgia on Monday, a move likely to worsen relations with the West that are already strained by Moscow's military intervention there.
The upper house of parliament, or Federation Council, voted 130-0 to approve a non-binding resolution calling on President Dmitry Medvedev to recognise the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent.
Georgia and Russia fought a brief war earlier this month over South Ossetia after Tbilisi sent in troops to try to retake the province by force, provoking a massive counter-attack by land, sea and air from Moscow.
"Today it is clear that after Georgia's aggression against South Ossetia, Georgian-South-Ossetian and Georgian-Abkhazian relations cannot be returned to their former state," upper house speaker Sergei Mironov said during the debate.
"The peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have the right to get independence".
The lower house, or State Duma, was due to approve a similar resolution later in the day.
The resolutions could either signal Medvedev's intentions or be intended to strengthen his hand as he negotiates the status of Russian forces in Georgia with the West.
France, holder of the European Union's presidency, called a September 1 meeting of EU leaders to discuss the crisis and review the bloc's relations with Russia.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy brokered a ceasefire in the conflict, which has killed hundreds of people and made thousands more homeless.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said ties with Moscow could be scaled back if its troops were not fully withdrawn.
But French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was more cautious. "We're not talking about sanctions," he told France Inter radio.
"Getting a ceasefire, stopping hostilities and the troop withdrawal in eight days, that's quite a lot already. We'll have to see. We have to take stock of the situation."
Moscow, which has pulled back the bulk of its forces from central and western Georgia, says the residual troops are peacekeepers needed to avert further bloodshed and protect South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
But Georgia and the West object to the scale of the Russian-imposed buffer zone adjoining the two rebel regions, which hands Moscow pressure points on key oil and trade routes through Georgia to the Black Sea.
Western governments have been alarmed in particular by the presence of Russian troops around Poti, Georgia's busiest Black Sea port. Officials there said Russian soldiers had been inside the port terminal and taken out computers and photocopiers.
The United States, which has said Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organisation could suffer, on Sunday delivered 55 tonnes of aid aboard the warship USS McFaul a gesture of support for its close ally, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
BARGAINING CHIP
Kakha Lomaia, Secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, said if the Kremlin recognised the breakaway regions as lawmakers asked, it would be illegal.
"If it does this, Russia will further isolate itself from the entire world, and will force the international community to seek more active ways to restore the territorial integrity of Georgia," Lomaia told Reuters.
Formal recognition by Russia of the independence of South Ossetia and the Black Sea province of Abkhazia would put it on a collision course with the United States and other Western nations which insist on Georgia's territorial integrity.
On August 14 Medvedev told separatist leaders in Moscow that Russia would support a drive for self-determination by Abkhazia and South Ossetia and vowed to guarantee any such move.
However, the Kremlin could -- as it has done in the past -- ignore pleas by parliament that would exacerbate its confrontation with the West, and instead use domestic pressure as a bargaining chip in future negotiations with the West.
Russia has so far resisted repeated calls for formal recognition by South Ossetians and Abkhazians, although Kremlin officials have hinted that the Western recognition of Serbia's breakaway region of Kosovo has created a precedent.
But diplomats say the Kremlin is also worried about separatist pressures in some of Russia's own Caucasus regions and may be reluctant to grant South Ossetia independence for fear of creating a domino effect at home.
Moscow says its armed intervention averted a "genocide" of Ossetians by Georgia, and Russian leaders have said it is unthinkable the rebels would agree to reunite with Georgia.
Despite repeated demands for a complete Russian pullback to positions before the conflict, the West lacks leverage over a resurgent Russia, whose oil and gas it depends on.
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