Agencies, BRUSSELS, VIENNA and IGOETI, Georgia
NATO allies said yesterday that regular contacts with Russia were impossible until its troops are fully withdrawn from Georgia, and said they were “seriously considering” the implications of Moscow’s actions.
“We have determined that we cannot continue with business as usual,” the 26 NATO states said in a joint declaration after emergency talks in Brussels over the South Ossetia conflict.
Separately, they agreed to set up a new forum known as a NATO-Georgia Commission to deepen ties with Tbilisi.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told a news conference it would function along similar lines to an 11-year-old arrangement with Ukraine but would not prejudge Georgia’s prospects of entering the alliance.
De Hoop Scheffer said Russian forces needed to return to their positions as of Aug. 6, and until Russian troops withdrew from Georgia he could not see the possibility of a meeting between NATO states and Russia.
“We certainly have not the intention to close all doors,” he said, but added in reference to the promised Russian troop withdrawal: “It’s not happening at the moment.”
“Russian troops will have to withdraw now to their pre-crisis positions,” he said.
Washington had called on NATO nations to consider at least suspending ministerial meetings with Russia, but Britain and others said it would be counter-productive to cut channels of communication with Moscow now.
In other news, military observers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will be deployed in Georgia starting this week, after Georgia and Russia reached a compromise and the organization approved the mission yesterday.
Twenty monitors “will be deployed immediately to the area adjacent to South Ossetia,” the mandate by the 56 OSCE member countries said.
In total, the OSCE Permanent Council approved up to 100 observers to be sent to Georgia. Some of the first 20 mission members would travel to Georgia in the next two days, said Aleksi Harkonen, the representative of Finland which currently holds the OSCE chairmanship.
But further details have to be worked out and approved by OSCE members before the 80 other monitors can be deployed.
Meanwhile, Russian and Georgian forces yesterday carried out their first prisoner exchange since the conflict began.
Fifteen Georgian prisoners were exchanged for five Russians at the Igoeti checkpoint 30km from Tbilisi, the Georgian defense ministry said.
A Russian helicopter bearing the Georgian detainees landed in a field beside the checkpoint early yesterday morning. Russian soldiers then took the prisoners to the checkpoint, two of them wounded and on stretchers. The Russian prisoners had arrived in Georgian cars.
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