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We will stay put in S. Ossetia: Medvedev

MOSCOW: Russia will not let the West snatch away the fruit of its victory over Georgia. This is the message President Dmitry Medvedev put across after meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“Russia has restored peace [in South Ossetia] and its peacekeepers will stay there as guarantors of security in the Caucasus,” he said at a press conference with the German Chancellor on Friday. He rejected Ms. Merkel’s remark that Russia used “disproportionate” force against Georgia.

“We have executed our peacekeeping mandate to stop aggression and will do it again if our peacekeepers and civilians come under attack,” said Mr. Medvedev.

Ms. Merkel urged the withdrawal of the remaining Russian troops from what she called as “Georgian core territory.” Mr. Medvedev said Georgia should first sign the six-point peace plan negotiated by Russia and France. He also refused to accept the principle of Georgia’s territorial integrity a basis for political settlement between the former Soviet republic and its breakaway territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as Ms. Merkel suggested.

“We do not reject the principle of territorial integrity as such, but after what Georgia did the people of South Ossetia and Abkhazia are not likely to agree to live with Georgians in a single state,” he said, reiterating his pledge to support the separatists’ bid for independence.

“Russia, as a guarantor of security in the Caucasus, will accept the will of these two peoples, will be guided by it in international affairs and will guarantee its enforcement on the territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in line with our peacekeeping mandate,” he added. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Georgia on Friday to show Washington’s support and to secure Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili’s signature to the peace deal with Russia. The Georgian leader had accepted the deal at a meeting with the French President Nicola Sarkozy on Sunday, but now said he wants to “take a closer look at it,” alleging the Russians are trying to “legalise their presence in Georgia.”

TV footage showed Russian tanks and armoured personnel carriers freely moving inside Georgia on Friday. The Russian military said they were removing weapons from Georgian military bases and preventing looting in areas deserted by Georgian police.

Mr. Medvedev angrily reacted to the singing of an agreement between the U.S. and Poland on Thursday to site U.S. anti-missile system in Poland. “The deployment of the anti-missile system in Europe is directed against Russia, and the timing of the agreement also proves this,” he said, dismissing as “fairytales” U.S. argument that the missile defence is being installed against Iran.

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