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Neither Putin nor Saakashvili looks likely to step back from stand-o

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  • Neither Putin nor Saakashvili looks likely to step back from stand-o

    Neither Putin nor Saakashvili looks likely to step back from stand-off
    By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer

    Associated Press Worldstream
    October 6, 2006 Friday

    Who will blink first? The leaders of Russia and Georgia are locked
    in a contest of political wills that appears to be fueled as much by
    their styles as by the grievances piled up between the neighboring
    nations since the Soviet collapse.

    Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili whom some pro-Kremlin protesters
    have caricatured as Hitler minces no words when describing his quest
    to restore Georgia's territorial integrity and full independence,
    and that means resisting what he calls Russia's bullying.

    He came out swinging at the U.N. General Assembly last month, accusing
    Russia of the "gangster occupation" of parts of his country and of
    condoning ethnic cleansing.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has condescendingly referred
    to Saakashvili as a hot-tempered native of the Caucasus, a region
    Russians associated with warring tribes, wily traders and banditry.

    When Saakashvili tried to arrange a meeting with Putin last summer to
    reduce escalating tensions, the Kremlin said Putin was too busy. And
    Putin, a former KGB agent who has stuffed Russia's ruling elite with
    one-time secret service colleagues, has ironically likened the actions
    of the Georgian leadership to the policies of Lavrenty Beria Josef
    Stalin's henchman who ran the precursor to the KGB.

    Georgians respond to Putin's barbs with a touch of bravado, joking
    that the tall Saakashvili is "the big dictator of a small country,
    and Putin the small dictator of a large one."

    By now, Putin and Saakashvili have dug themselves so deeply into
    their political trenches that it's hard to imagine who will be the
    first to cave in.

    Behind each leader stands an army of politicians and aides eager to
    outdo each other in devotion to the national interest.

    After years of mutual verbal sparring, Georgia last week arrested four
    Russian military officers alleged to be spies. Russia responded by
    suspending the issuance of visas to Georgian citizens and slapping
    a transport and postal blockade on Georgia. Police in Moscow have
    closed down several casinos suddenly discovered allegedly to be run
    by the Georgian mafia and have combed marketplaces and restaurants
    to detain and deport Georgians without work permits.

    "The Kremlin has driven itself into a dead end: it can end sanctions
    without losing face only if it forces Saakashvili to his knees,"
    Moscow-based political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin told The Associated
    Press. "The Georgian elite also can't conduct any rational talks with
    Russia without losing face. Bilateral ties have been spoiled for good."

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the sanctions will stay
    in place until Georgia changes its anti-Russian course.

    "That's only the beginning of our sanctions, we could exert such a
    pressure on them that even a mouse wouldn't sneak through," boasted
    Andrei Kokoshin, the head of Russian parliament's committee for ties
    with ex-Soviet nations.

    But Georgia looks unlikely to bend. Beyond Saakashvili's natural
    inclination for dramatic steps, defiance appears to be Georgia's
    strategy for attracting Western support and pressing its case to
    join NATO.

    Putin's strategy in applying such unprecedented pressure against a
    former Soviet republic is less clear.

    "The hawks in the Kremlin don't have any positive program," Oreshkin
    said. "They aren't pursuing any long-term strategic goals; all they
    want is to punish Georgia and hit it hard."

    Several Russian politicians have already raised the prospect of cutting
    natural gas to Georgia, but such a move would also block supplies to
    Russia's closest ally in the Caucasus, Armenia.

    Some Russian commentators said the Kremlin apparently hoped that
    the burden of sanctions would encourage Georgians to unite against
    Saakashvili. But such hopes appear illusory: the blockade and Russian
    police crackdown on the Georgian diaspora would badly hurt ordinary
    people but Saakashvili would likely not be blamed. In fact, the
    perception of Russian interference could very well shore up support
    for the president, whose popularity has been falling amid persistent
    poverty and high unemployment.

    "It looks like Russia needs to reach the limits of absurdity to
    realize that such pressure only makes Georgia more pro-Western,"
    Georgy Nodia, the head of the Tbilisi-based Institue for Peace and
    Democracy and Development, told the AP.

    Some pro-Kremlin lawmakers and political analysts have suggested that
    Russia could go so far as to recognize the independence of Abkhazia
    and South Ossetia and even move to incorporate them. South Ossetia
    has already scheduled an independence referendum next month.

    However, an attempt to annex the separatist regions would effectively
    shatter Russia's already freezing ties with the United States and put
    it on a collision course with other Western nations an outcome clearly
    not in the interests of the Kremlin striving for closer integration
    into the global economy.

    "Under no circumstances will the Russian leaders wage a war against
    Georgia, recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia or
    provide them with official military assistance," analyst Stanislav
    Belkovsky wrote in a recent commentary, adding that the Kremlin
    wouldn't risk its economic interests in the West.

    Associated Press Writer Vladimir Isachenkov has been reporting on
    political affairs in Russia and the former Soviet Union since 1991.

    Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili contributed to this report from Tbilisi.
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