Russia pulls back from Georgian buffer zones

RUSSIA: RUSSIAN TROOPS are dismantling checkpoints in so-called buffer zones around the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, contrary to fears in Tbilisi that they would use a deadly car bomb attack as a pre-text to delay their withdrawal, writes Daniel McLaughlin

Georgian officials and European Union monitors reported seeing Russian soldiers retreating from a checkpoint near South Ossetia and the town of Zugdidi close to Abkhazia, almost six weeks after Moscow recognised the two provinces as independent states.

"It looks like the start of the withdrawal," said Georgian interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili. "Georgian police are moving into the area immediately."

According to a deal agreed by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy, Moscow's forces must pull out of the buffer zones by Friday.

Under the terms of the agreement, their withdrawal was triggered by the deployment of more than 200 EU monitors to Georgia last week.

Russia says the monitors will not be allowed into South Ossetia and Georgia proper, where Moscow plans to station more than 7,500 soldiers. As of last week, some 800 Russian troops were thought to be deployed in the buffer zones at about 18 encampments.

The Kremlin's forces poured into South Ossetia in early August to repel a Georgian drive to retake control of the region which, like Abkhazia, won de-facto independence from Tbilisi during a short war in the early 1990s. Both regions were supported by Moscow and most of their residents had been given Russian passports in recent years.

Georgia's pro-western leadership accused the Kremlin of a launching a premeditated invasion to undermine its bid to join Nato, and ensure continuing Russian domination of the strategic, ex-Soviet Black Sea region, which is a key route for oil and gas exports to Europe.

International talks on the situation in the Caucasus are due to convene in Geneva on October 15th.

Some EU countries, whose response to Russian intervention in Georgia has been compromised by their dependence on Moscow's oil and gas, welcomed signs of a troop withdrawal from the buffer zones. "It's a positive first step which must be followed by others," said German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Georgia had warned that Russian troops would use last week's car bomb attack outside their base in South Ossetia, which killed 11 people, as a pre-text to delay their withdrawal.

© 2008 The Irish Times

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