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European Press Review: Russia's Relations With West In Free Fall

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  • European Press Review: Russia's Relations With West In Free Fall

    EUROPEAN PRESS REVIEW: RUSSIA'S RELATIONS WITH WEST IN FREE FALL

    Deutsche Welle, Germany
    http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3 596535,00.html
    Aug 27 2008

    European editorials are pessimistic about international security after
    Russian President Dmitry Medvedev decided to recognize the Georgian
    territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

    "Russia's de facto incorporation of parts of another State is
    brutal, but it is also unambiguous," wrote the Financial Times
    Deutschland. "There will be no need for the EU to bother trying to
    reach an amicable solution or discussing the deployment of peacekeepers
    in the Caucasus at its upcoming emergency summit this week. After
    yesterday, the subject is closed. There is simply no point trying
    to negotiate with Russia, and it would be the wrong thing to do,
    even if it there were. The EU cannot discuss easing visa restrictions
    or economic cooperation when the other side is proving that it sees
    international agreements as mere scraps of paper."

    The Suddeutsche Zeitung wondered what the next development will
    be. "It is unclear how Russian and the West will claw their way out
    of the worst crisis (in relations) since the collapse of the Soviet
    Union. Right now, they are in free fall. And that happened because
    Moscow chose to demonstrate how it is possible for a government to win
    a military victory at the same time as digging its political grave. For
    weeks, Moscow has been working itself up into an isolationist frenzy,
    venting all sorts of grudges believed to be long forgotten, with
    the government and its leader burning all the bridges they had so
    carefully built..."

    The daily Berliner Zeitung condemned Medvedev's decision:
    "The Russian leadership has referred to the right of nations to
    self-determination. It is worth reminding them that the 1989 census
    in Abkhazia revealed that living alongside Armenians and Russians, 48
    percent of the population were Georgian and only 17 percent Abkhaz. By
    2005, there were 45 percent Abkhaz and just 6.5 percent Georgians. The
    reason for this development: 200,000 of 250,000 Georgians either fled
    during conflicts in the 1990s or were driven out. In South Ossetia,
    only 29 percent of the population in 1991 were Georgian. They all
    fled after Russia's military strike on Georgia. So when the Abkhaz
    and South Ossetians announce independence based ostensibly on a law
    of nations, Russian recognition amounts to sanctioning an expulsion
    of people that violates the law of nations."

    "Anyone still wondering about the motives for Russia's war against
    Georgia must have realized what is going on by now," wrote Spain's
    center-right daily El Mundo. "Moscow made its decision long
    ago. Protecting the Ossetians against massacre was just an excuse
    to send its tanks into Georgia's breakaway regions. Russia is using
    military might to redraw the map in the Caucasus. The West is watching
    this sorry spectacle unfold -- this strategy of the fait accompli. But
    Europe and its allies are obligated to defend Georgia's integrity. The
    EU must translate its words into action and take a hardliner stance
    against Moscow."

    In Paris, conservative daily Liberation was similarly convinced
    that the West needs to get tough with Russia: "The Russian
    president's decision to recognize Georgia's breakaway regions is
    sheer provocation (...) These two "states" only exist thanks to
    the petro-dollar and the Russian army. Whether in South Ossetia or
    Abkhazia, thousands of Georgians in these regions have fallen victim
    to ethnic cleansing. Their "governments" made up of collaborators are
    mafia-like creations of the Russian secret service. The "ministers"
    in South Ossetia are retired Russian generals. What can be done
    about it? Moscow's actions must be condemned, obviously. But first
    and foremost, we need to see a debate about future relations between
    the West and Russia."

    But left-leaning British broadsheet The Guardian suggested that
    Moscow might actually be playing straight into the hands of Mikheil
    Saakashvili: "In defiance even of Germany and France, which adopted the
    most even-handed approach to the Georgian conflict, Russian President
    Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree recognizing the independence of South
    Ossetia and Abkhazia. There was little pressure on him to do so. Both
    provinces have been independent from Tbilisi since 1991, when the
    last hothead Georgian president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, tried to seize
    them. Recognition will not make either the Ossetians or the Abkhaz
    sleep safer in their beds. It will not do anything to stop the ethnic
    cleansing of Georgian villages in these enclaves, which the Russian
    foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, condemned yesterday..... Russia's
    actions are handing Georgia a military alliance with the west on
    a silver platter. This is the glittering strategic prize for which
    Mikheil Saakashvili, the nationalist Georgian president who ordered
    his troops to attack Tskhinvali, has been toiling day and night. It
    is a prize that he may consider to be worth the sacrifice of two
    parts of his country."
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