Russian newspapers yesterday hailed a victory for Moscow after the EU froze talks on closer ties until Russian troops withdraw from Georgia but stopped short of imposing economic sanctions.
“Europe can keep sucking our oil and gas,” read a headline in the tabloid Tvoi Den, adding that the EU had not “given in to the hysterics” of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Polish President Lech Kaczynski.
“The mutual dependency between Russia and the EU leaves no alternative to developing close bilateral relations. This was once again confirmed at the EU summit in Brussels,” the government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta said.
PHOTO: EPA
“There is no mention of the introduction of economic sanctions in the final statement approved at the summit. This looks, at least at this stage, like a clear victory for proponents of dialogue with Moscow,” the daily said.
The Kommersant daily said the summit was “a victory for Russian diplomacy.”
Izvestia said: “The main result of the Brussels summit of the EU is that most Europeans do not want to have a serious and long row with Moscow.”
Ahead of Monday’s emergency summit of the EU, some members including Britain and Poland had called for harsher measures against Moscow following Russia’s five-day war with Georgia last month.
Russian forces have remained deep inside Georgian territory since their Aug. 8 offensive in retaliation against a Georgian attack on its separatist province of South Ossetia, which Moscow has since recognized as independent.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov left yesterday for talks on the Georgia crisis with Turkish counterpart Ali Babacan, reports said.
Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili had met Babacan on Sunday.
SARKOZY
At the EU summit, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he would visit both Moscow and Tbilisi on Monday for talks on the crisis with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
“As long as the withdrawal of troops has not been respected, all meetings on the [EU-Russia] partnership accord are postponed,” Barroso told journalists after the extraordinary summit, the first since the Iraq war in 2003.
“It is clear that in the light of recent events, we cannot continue as if nothing has happened,” Barroso added.
Sarkozy said the crisis “means that we have to re-examine our relationship with Russia.”
The French president was scheduled to meet his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on Monday in Moscow, Russian news agencies reported, citing a Medvedev aide, saying Moscow intended to follow up on contacts with Sarkozy.
“The meeting on Sept. 8 is going to be crucial for relations between the EU and Russia,” Sarkozy said.
Sarkozy brokered a six-point ceasefire agreement that ended the conflict between Georgia and Russia last month.
WARNING
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said yesterday that Russia would suffer politically and economically for its military intervention in Georgia even though it may have won short-term gains.
Moscow is now more isolated and less trusted than it was a month ago, Miliband wrote in an opinion piece in the Irish Examiner.
“It has made short-term military gains, but over time it will feel economic and political losses. If Russia truly wants respect and influence, it must change course,” Miliband wrote.
“Isolating Russia would be counter-productive, because its international economic integration is the best discipline on its politics,” Miliband said.
Miliband said Europeans needed Russian gas but Russia also needed European markets and investment.
“Our approach must be hard-headed engagement,” he said.
“Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says that he is not afraid of a new cold war. We don’t want one. He has a big responsibility not to start one,” Miliband said.
PROTEST
Meanwhile, masked police in the southern Russian region of Ingushetia used batons to break up an anti-government protest yesterday, two days after an opposition leader died in police custody.
Ingushetia lies next to Chechnya and North Ossetia at the heart of Russia’s north Caucasus. Bombings, murders and police crackdowns have wracked Ingushetia over the last 12 months and analysts say the instability could spread.
Magomed Mutsolgov from the Ingushetia-based human rights group Mashr said police arrived at around 5.30am to disperse a crowd of around 50 men who slept in the main square in Nazran, Ingushetia’s biggest city.
Police and military vehicles were then deployed to block access to the main square, Mutsolgov said.
The protest started on Monday during the funeral of Magomed Yevloyev, owner of opposition Web site www.ingushetiya.ru.
The authorities have tried this year to close the site — one of the few unofficial sources of information.
Yevloyev died in police custody on Sunday from a gunshot wound. Police said he was shot after lunging for an officer’s gun, but his supporters and human rights groups said they do not believe that explanation.
Yevloyev is the most high-profile Russian journalist to be killed since assassins shot investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya at her Moscow apartment in October 2006.
In July, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists described Ingushetia as “a lawless zone where enemies of the press can attack journalists with impunity.”
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