The Russian armed forces said on Monday they had started to withdraw troops from the conflict zone in Georgia in accordance with a French-brokered peace plan but Tbilisi and a US official said they saw no signs a pullout had started.
”The pull-out of peacekeeping forces started today,” , Col-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the general staff, told a daily official briefing. However, a senior US official told Reuters there were no signs yet that a planned Russian pullout had begun.
”Thus far there isn’t any evidence we’ve seen,” the US official told reporters ahead of an emergency meeting of NATO foreign ministers on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity. ”Let’s hope that this is a technical slowness in getting implemented... let’s see the Russians begin to pull back. That’s what we’d like to see, but we haven’t seen it yet.”
The Georgian Interior Ministry accused Russian forces of blowing up stores of Georgian ammunition and weaponry at a base near the western town of Senaki ahead of a planned withdrawal from Georgia. SpokesmanShota Utiashvili said Moscow’s troops had also destroyed the runway at the base. ”They are destroying everything and then pulling out of these places,” he said. ”If they call this a pullout, then I do not understand the meaning of the word.”
Earlier, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that any further aggression against Russian citizens would face a ”crushing response”.
Western leaders formed a united front on Sunday as they increased pressure on Russia to live up to its pledge to withdraw from Georgian territory in accordance with a ceasefire signed at the weekend.
Mr Medvedev told Nicolas Sarkozy, his French counterpart, that Russian forces would begin their withdrawal on Monday, moving towards the breakaway region of South Ossetia and a security zone that roughly coincides with its borders.
But his pledge to withdraw forces came only after Mr Sarkozy warned Russia that it faced “serious consequences” if it did not pull out immediately. It also drew a sceptical reaction from Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.
The exchanges added to the war of words between Moscow and western capitals in what has become the most serious stand-off between Russia and the west since the end of the cold war.
Ms Rice accused Russia of violating the ceasefire Mr Medvedev signed on Saturday. “There is a ceasefire and Russia is currently not in compliance with this ceasefire,” she told Fox News Sunday.
Visiting Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, Ms Merkel said the world was watching Russia and called the withdrawal from Georgia an issue of “credibility”.
In comments likely to irk Moscow, the German chancellor also said Georgia remained on track to eventually join Nato, as agreed at a May Nato summit. “Every free, independent country can together with Nato members discuss when it can join Nato. In December, we will have a first evaluation of the situation and we are on a clear path in the direction of Nato membership,” she told reporters at a press conference with Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s president.
Mr Medvedev stopped short of promising that Russian troops would return to Russia, suggesting that Russia could maintain a sizeable force in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and in a buffer zone several kilometres wide around the enclaves.
Such a massive Russian presence in the enclaves could allow them eventually to seek independence or be annexed by Russia, something Georgia is desperate to avoid. “No matter what happens, we will never reconcile with the fact of annexation or indeed separation of parts of territory from Georgia; with the attempt to legalise ethnic cleansing; and with the attempts to bring Georgia to its knees and undermine our democratic system,” Mr Saakashvili said.
Things initially looked optimistic on Sunday morning, as Russia’s forward commander in Gori, Georgia, declared the Russian army was leaving Georgia. But soon after that, Russia’s defence ministry issued a denial.
The US has been trying to marshal western countries to exert pressure on Russia to live up to the ceasefire, and respect Georgia’s territorial integrity. But major fissures have opened up between western allies in the past week, with Germany, France and Italy opposing Washington’s bid to further isolate Moscow.
Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, warned against punishing Russia too severely. “I do not advise . . . any knee-jerk reaction such as suspending talks on a partnership and co-operation agreement [with the European Union],” he told the weekly Welt am Sonntag.
