Georgians Hope U.S. Will Join Boundary Monitors
Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:22 pm
KIEV, Ukraine — Georgian leaders hope the United States will join the European Union’s monitoring effort along the boundary with two breakaway Georgian enclaves, a step they believe could deter aggression from Russian or separatist forces, a senior Georgian official said on Monday.
The European Union’s 246 monitors in Georgia are unarmed civilians, and are not allowed access to the enclaves, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Russian forces wrested away from Georgian control in a short war a year ago. Still, Eka Tkeshelashvili, secretary of the Georgia’s national security council, said broadening the monitoring mission to include the United States and other non-union members would make it “politically very costly to Russia to do anything on the ground.”
“It has the potential for reaching a very tangible impact,” she said. “It’s always very hard to think what are the red lines that ultimately Russia might respect, because we saw last year that it passed most of the red lines that we could have imagined.”
The European Union’s members are holding an “informal discussion” about whether to invite the United States to participate, a requirement for any such expansion, said Peter Semneby, the union’s special representative for the South Caucasus. He said the European Union has “taken note of the interest on the Georgian side,” but the decision is not yet formally on any agenda.The question will almost certainly come up this week, when Vice President Joseph P. Biden meets with leaders in Ukraine and Georgia. His visit, shortly after President Barack Obama’s meeting with the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, in Moscow, aims to reassure Ukraine and Georgia that American support will not be undermined by an improvement in relations with Russia.
Mr. Biden’s reaction to the monitoring proposal will offer one clue to how far that support extends: Participating would assert Washington’s concern over Georgia’s breakaway territories. It would also challenge Russia, which wants the United States to scale back its involvement in post-Soviet republics.
Mr. Biden intends to make it clear, on this trip, that the United States will not abandon its allies in deference to Russia, said one of his senior advisors.
“We will continue to reject the notion of spheres of influence,” Antony J. Blinken, Mr. Biden’s national security advisor, said in a conference call with reporters last week. “We will continue to stand by the principle that sovereign democracies have the right to make their own decisions and choose their own partnerships and alliances.”
At the same time, said one American official who was not authorized to speak on the record, “there will also be some tough love in both places.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/world ... ml?_r=1&hp
The European Union’s 246 monitors in Georgia are unarmed civilians, and are not allowed access to the enclaves, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Russian forces wrested away from Georgian control in a short war a year ago. Still, Eka Tkeshelashvili, secretary of the Georgia’s national security council, said broadening the monitoring mission to include the United States and other non-union members would make it “politically very costly to Russia to do anything on the ground.”
“It has the potential for reaching a very tangible impact,” she said. “It’s always very hard to think what are the red lines that ultimately Russia might respect, because we saw last year that it passed most of the red lines that we could have imagined.”
The European Union’s members are holding an “informal discussion” about whether to invite the United States to participate, a requirement for any such expansion, said Peter Semneby, the union’s special representative for the South Caucasus. He said the European Union has “taken note of the interest on the Georgian side,” but the decision is not yet formally on any agenda.The question will almost certainly come up this week, when Vice President Joseph P. Biden meets with leaders in Ukraine and Georgia. His visit, shortly after President Barack Obama’s meeting with the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, in Moscow, aims to reassure Ukraine and Georgia that American support will not be undermined by an improvement in relations with Russia.
Mr. Biden’s reaction to the monitoring proposal will offer one clue to how far that support extends: Participating would assert Washington’s concern over Georgia’s breakaway territories. It would also challenge Russia, which wants the United States to scale back its involvement in post-Soviet republics.
Mr. Biden intends to make it clear, on this trip, that the United States will not abandon its allies in deference to Russia, said one of his senior advisors.
“We will continue to reject the notion of spheres of influence,” Antony J. Blinken, Mr. Biden’s national security advisor, said in a conference call with reporters last week. “We will continue to stand by the principle that sovereign democracies have the right to make their own decisions and choose their own partnerships and alliances.”
At the same time, said one American official who was not authorized to speak on the record, “there will also be some tough love in both places.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/world ... ml?_r=1&hp
You want a medal? And, I'm sure when you used the can onboard, a manual of the Soviet Union's nuclear secrets was wedged in the piping above the urinal. Don't pretend you were at the right hand of right hand of God, Muffy. You "participated" in the Cold War little more than I did. 
