An opposition party leader alleged that the fatal shooting of another opposition figure had ben ordered by the government, but the top government figures rejected the claim, Pravda.Ru reports.
Popularity: 2% [?]
May 22, 2007Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has criticized the Russian peacekeeping effort in his country’s breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, effectively saying Russian troops should leave, Reuters news agency reported March 15.
Popularity: 1% [?]
March 17, 2007Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said Wednesday that Azerbaijan had agreed to supply his country with natural gas as it seeks alternatives to rising Russian prices, but Azerbaijan’s state petroleum company said no contract has been signed, AP reports.
Popularity: 2% [?]
November 30, 2006According to Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili Georgia does not want to confront with Russia and hopes to normalize bilateral ties, The Associated Press reports.
Popularity: 1% [?]
November 27, 2006Mikhail Saakashvili on Tuesday rejected Russia’s accusations that his country was preparing for the forceful seizure of the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, accusing Moscow of fueling disputes in the region based on its old territorial claims, AP reports.
Popularity: 2% [?]
November 15, 2006Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili appealed to the European Union on Tuesday for solidarity in his country’s standoff with Russia, the Reuters news agency reported on Tuesday.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Voters in Georgia’s breakaway Republic of South Ossetia will head to the polls on November 12 to choose a new president and to participate in a referendum on the unrecognized republic’s independent status, RFE/RL reports.
Popularity: 2% [?]
The United States rejects an independence referendum planned for Sunday in the separatist South Ossetia region of Georgia, Reuters news agency reported quoting an official State Department statement.
Popularity: 1% [?]
November 9, 2006Police in the South Ossetia region killed four Georgian “saboteurs†on Tuesday, a South Ossetian minister said, raising tension days before Ossetians vote in an independence referendum, the Reuters news agency reported.
South Ossetia threw off Georgian rule in fighting during the early 1990s. A ceasefire was signed but violence has simmered between the two sides, especially since the fiery pro-Western Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili was elected in 2004.
“A group of Georgian saboteurs has been eliminated this morning,†South Ossetia’s emergency minister, Boris Chochiev, told Reuters. He did not give any details about who the men were working for or what they were doing.
“According to preliminary reports there were four of them. All of them have been killed.â€
Georgian authorities said they had no information about any of their police or military being killed.
Last month a helicopter carrying Georgia’s defence minister was hit by gunfire as it flew over South Ossetia and a shoot out between police killed three South Ossetians and one Georgian.
Popularity: 1% [?]
October 31, 2006Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued his sternest warning to Georgia so far, telling European Union leaders that Tbilisi was risking bloodshed by seeking to regain control over breakaway regions.
The Reuters news agency reports that Putin sounded a conciliatory note on energy cooperation with the 25-nation EU, agreeing to negotiate on common principles in a new strategic partnership agreement and giving an assurance that foreign oil and gas investments would be respected. But he firmly rebuffed EU criticism of Russia’s blockade of its former Soviet neighbor, saying Georgia had provoked the escalation in tension by staging a military buildup around the Russian-backed regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
“It is moving in the direction of bloodshed because the Georgian leadership is seeking to restore its control through military means and they are quite open about that,†Putin told a joint news conference after dinner with EU leaders. Georgia’s foreign minister accused Putin of deliberately misrepresenting the tensions between Georgia and Russia, and insulting the intelligence of his European colleagues.
“The government of Georgia and the people of Georgia have no intention to use force against its citizens as repeatedly stated,†Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili told reporters in Tbilisi. “This is pure fiction and the Russian president knows this but chooses to presume that the international community is ignorant,†he said.
The Europeans delivered a united message that Russia must give European firms a fair chance to access its huge energy resources or risk an investor exodus. “We need to develop mutual trust that requires transparency, the rule of law, reciprocity, nondiscrimination, market opening and market access,†European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said.
Putin said he believed there were no issues in energy cooperation that could not be resolved. He assured the Europeans that a decision to exclude foreign capital from development of the Arctic Shtokman gas field did not signal a change in rules for foreign investors and said Moscow would respect Shell’s license to operate its Sakhalin-2 project, which has been hit by Russian environmental charges.
Russian and European officials said Putin sought to tackle EU criticism head-on by inviting the leaders from the outset to question him on any sensitive issue. Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said he had raised the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a fierce critic of Putin, as well as Moscow’s treatment of Georgia and the harassment of Georgians in Russia.
Russia cut transport and postal links with Georgia after Tbilisi briefly detained four Russian army officers on spying charges last month. Some Georgians have been deported from Russia, Georgian businesses have been shut down and police have asked some schools to provide lists of pupils with Georgian-sounding names. Moscow has been irked by Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili’s pursuit of NATO and EU membership, while Georgia accuses Russia of backing separatists by giving aid and Russian passports to residents of the breakaway territories.
Popularity: 1% [?]
October 21, 2006
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