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Wednesday,
August 15,
2007, #155 (1422)
Presidents Saakashvili and Putin were, not long ago, expected to clasp hands this summer as they met in Moscow for a frank and friendly conversation. Observers, including this paper, spoke hopefully of an upswing in relations between Georgia and Russia as word of the presidential meeting surfaced. So much for that. The Tsitelubani missile incident has thrown the neighbors back onto regrettably familiar ground. Barely-restrained invective and deadlocked negotiations poison the airs. Saakashvili has publicly reiterated his willingness to venture to the Kremlin, but now he wants to talk about Russian missiles tearing up Georgian fields. Putin probably doesn't. The five-meter hole in Tsitelubani will take time to fill in and smooth over. Until it is, discourse will continue to be turbulent. Media in both countries chatter away; Russian sources generally back up muttered assertions that Tbilisi orchestrated the incident. Russian deputy Prime Minister-and possible heir to the presidency-Sergey Ivanov is the latest and highest official to accuse Georgia of staging an elaborate hoax. Why? As a pretext to jettison the Joint Control Commission, Ivanov claimed, along with the malfunctioning missile. The suggestion, then, is that Tbilisi authorities faked radar records, bamboozled North Ossetian eyewitness peacekeepers and hid a Russian missile under a flower patch so they could skip out on another pointless roundtable discussion. That's an ambitious step up from their tactic for avoiding the last JCC session, held in separatist Tskhinvali: simply not going. Nor is Tbilisi the only side interfering with the JCC's effectiveness. De facto South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity has pulled his representatives out of more than one planned session, talking of vague safety threats to his delegation. Davit Bakradze, the new State Minister for Conflict Resolution, had the sharpest of sharp rejoinders for Ivanov's statement. "Unlike its neighboring country, Georgian authorities do not plant bombs in apartment buildings," Bakradze said. He was referencing strongly-backed allegations that the FSB was behind two devastating 1999 apartment bombings in Russia which provided a casus belli for the second Chechen war. Accusing a government of intentionally slaughtering its citizens would not be a particularly helpful backdrop for a presidential dialogue. An international group of experts is now peering over missile pieces and other evidence in Georgia; a report is expected in about a month. Moscow is not represented in the group. Nor would they want to be, as that would make it more difficult to dismiss the group's eventual conclusions, as they almost certainly will. And while the group will probably back up Tbilisi's claims of a Russian provocation, officials here are worried about another half-hearted response from the international community. Saakashvili is doing his best to keep the world's attention for more than a few hours, warning in a recent CNN interview that Russia's "pattern of behavior" should worry all democratic countries. Hawkish opposition politicians in Georgia, meanwhile, are calling for more radical responses. Having exhausted complaints over a missed chance to down a Russian plane, some are saying now's the time to finally withdraw from the CIS. Needless to say, relations will stay frosty for awhile. Some political analysts argue Saakashvili's administration has little incentive to work on reconciliation before next year's elections, as problems outside Georgia's borders are a tidy distraction from the problems within. If that's true,
don't look for a meeting-much less a productive one-between Saakashvili
and Putin any time soon. |
Little
chance left of a Putin-Saakashvili meeting this summer