Turning a deaf ear to Russia’s complaints, the administration of US President George W. Bush is moving to rebuild Georgia’s military while asserting it will not let Russia divide Europe again.
“Georgia, like any sovereign country, should have the ability to defend itself and to deter renewed aggression,” Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.
The Pentagon will send an assessment team to Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, this week to help figure out Georgia’s “legitimate needs” as a way of showing US support for the country’s security, Edelman said.
PHOTO: AFP
At the UN, Russia moved to block the US effort.
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin circulated a draft resolution to the Security Council that would impose a UN arms embargo on Georgia, preventing the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer of arms to the former Soviet republic.
The White House last week announced a US$1 billion program of economic aid, with about half going to Georgia before Bush leaves office and the remainder for the next administration to deliver.
Administration officials told the committee that any separate military buildup would be undertaken carefully and have in mind Georgia’s support for coalition efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan and its counterterror campaign against Chechen extremists.
Russia adamantly opposes US military aid to Georgia. The proposed Russian resolution is certain to encounter US opposition.
The US and Russia are both veto-wielding members of the Security Council.
In their Senate testimony on Tuesday, Edelman and Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried made clear that while Georgia is a valued ally of Washington, US officials had urged Georgians to avoid a military confrontation with Russia.
“We pointed out that use of military force, even in the face of provocations, would lead to a disaster,” Fried said. “We were blunt in conveying these points, not subtle.”
A five-day war broke out last month, when Russia seized on a surprise military operation by the Georgian army in the rebellious South Ossetia region to forcibly reassert its authority.
Russia sent armor and troops throughout much of Georgia and badly damaged the small country’s already minimal military capability. In the onslaught, Russian forces destroyed a sizable part of Georgia’s arsenal, US and Georgian officials have claimed.
“We must support Georgia,” Fried said in outlining administration policy.
The second key objective, he said, was “to prevent Russia from drawing a line down the center of Europe and declaring that nations on the wrong side of that line belong to Moscow’s ‘sphere of influence’ and therefore cannot join the great institutions of Europe and the trans-Atlantic family.”
Russia has been angered by Georgia’s efforts to join NATO.
Fried said he planned to go to Ukraine yesterday to look into complaints by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko that Russia was handing out passports to thousands of Russian Ukrainians in the Crimea peninsula to make them Russian citizens.
“Unfortunately, there is some basis” for Ukraine’s concern, Fried said.
The US has begun punishing Russia over Georgia.
In a mostly symbolic move, Bush this week canceled a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement that carried the symbolic message of cooperation between the two old adversaries.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS