Russia: U.S. Georgia Senate Resolution Fuels 'Revanchist Mood'

MOSCOW, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Russia criticised on Monday a U.S. Senate resolution calling for Moscow to withdraw troops from Georgia's breakaway regions, saying it fuelled a "revanchist mood" in Tbilisi.

The resolution reiterates Washington's long-standing call for Moscow to comply with the terms of a ceasefire ending its five-day war with neighbouring Georgia in 2008 and withdraw troops from the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russia, which recognised the two Georgian territories as independent following the conflict, maintains its right to base soldiers there.

"The new resolution on Georgia adopted by the U.S. Senate on July 29 sounds like a broken record ... The latest resolution is no more than a PR exercise, undertaken in order to 'publicise' the 'Georgian story'," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website.

"However, such statements are not without harm. They fuel the revanchist mood in politics in Tbilisi, justify and promote Georgia's unwillingness to cooperate."

The renewed friction comes after Georgia convicted a group of local photographers of spying for Moscow last month, the most publicised and controversial in dozens of alleged Russian spy arrests since the two countries went to war in August 2008.

U.S.-Russian relations soured during the war and under President George W. Bush's administration but have warmed significantly under President Barack Obama, who took office in 2009 promising a "reset" in bilateral ties.

(Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel, editing by Gareth Jones)

  
Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[Catherine Fitzpatrick]

12:30 PM on 08/18/2011

Russia should remove troops from this region *because that was the peace agreement Russia itself signed*. It's not about whether these territories are properly part of Georgia or not, although they don't have recognition from most UN members as independent (unlike Kosovo, the analogy Russia is always trying to make with Abkhazia and South Ossetia). Russia is not credible as a "peace-keeper" for anyone, given the decades of massacres they have perpetrated in the Caucasus, particularly Chechnya.

Russia should allow in neutral observers from the OSCE and the UN -- but it has kept them out, deliberately.

Kosovo is a region where Serb nationalists perpetrated crimes against humanity. The EU report on the Georgia-Russia conflict finds no such level of violations.

Here's a good blog post on illiberal liberal thinking on this subject.

http://3dblogger.typepad.com/minding_russia/2011/08/julia-ioffe-and-the-moral-equivalency-formula.html

[thomas meno]

03:11 PM on 08/02/2011

Considering these areas do not speak Georgian. Have a different culture, language and believes. They deserve freedom from Georgia and fact they were only apart of Georgia due to Stalin(a Georgian) adding them do the Republic during the Soviet Union. Also how do they discuses something like this without laughing when the U.S bombed Kosovo and took it away from Serbia? I mean that is as clear in irony you can get.

[albalatrv]

05:59 PM on 08/01/2011

What

[Vlad Roudenko]

02:00 PM on 08/01/2011

Russian troops are protecting those two republics. They are no longer a part of Georgia. For the US to tell Russia to withdraw their forces from two sovereign nations is a little absurd. US refusal to recognize those two nations as independent means very little in real terms.

[Zutroy]

01:45 PM on 08/01/2011

Georgia's "breakaway" regions are independent. Whether a legislative body on the other side of the world recognizes that fact is a non sequitur, because Georgia is never getting Abkhazia and South Ossetia back. Even the US realized this about Abkhazia before the war.

[Vlad Roudenko]

02:02 PM on 08/01/2011

Some US politicians enjoy grinding the ax too much, even to the point of sourcing relations between countries. They did this once before when they decided to pass a resolution recognizing what Turkey did in Armenia in 1915 as genocide.

[Zutroy]

03:05 AM on 08/02/2011

Bear in mind that all these countries have lobbying groups in the US. Only in America is democracy distorted so heavily in this particular way, because the rest of the world realizes that all they have to do is contact a lobbying firm and get some money flowing to get what they want--regardless of how irrationally this government behaves as a result. The outcome is a Frankenstein-like policy that veers around based on the fortunes of competing lobbies.

[LMPE]

01:12 PM on 08/01/2011

Wouldn't it be easier for everyone -- Russia and Georgia -- to get outta there?

[Vlad Roudenko]

06:48 PM on 08/01/2011

Russia wouldn't be in those two countries if Georgia was not threatening them.

[KIVPossum]

01:05 PM on 08/01/2011

Why didn't they include Transnistria? Russia was supposed to move their troops out years ago.

[Vlad Roudenko]

02:03 PM on 08/01/2011

The US politicians have nothing better to do than pass empty resolutions. They are that vain.

[MarkJudiGoet]

12:45 PM on 08/01/2011

I've said it before and I'll say it again, We need to learn how to keep our mouth shut", especially about things that are none of our business, and while we abide in a glass house, we should be very careful about casting stones.

[NYC123]

12:11 PM on 08/01/2011

We really need another cold war with the Russians?

[Vlad Roudenko]

02:04 PM on 08/01/2011

lol As if one was not enough, right? That would raise the national debt past the 20 trillion mark. What follows then, hyperinflation?

[Donatella]

11:36 AM on 08/01/2011

For the U.S. to demand that Russia leave those breakaway countries is laughable. We occupy two countries and are bombing at least one or two more and we are pointing the finger at Russia.

[Zutroy]

01:46 PM on 08/01/2011

In addition, we pryed Kosovo loose from Serbia.

Russian diplomats are wholly aware of this hypocrisy.

[Vlad Roudenko]

02:05 PM on 08/01/2011

And the EU refuses to recognize Abhazia and South Ossetia even when those two places cite Kosovo. Hypocrisy in the west knows no limits.