Russian forces pulled back from positions outside Georgia’s separatist South Ossetia region, bulldozing a camp at a key checkpoint and withdrawing as EU monitors followed. A Russian general said the pullout would be completed yesterday.
Dozens of Russian armored personnel carriers, trucks and transport vehicles rolled north on a main road leading through a buffer zone from Georgian-controlled territory into South Ossetia.
Georgian residents, frightened by arson and looting in the area blamed on Russia’s Ossetian allies, lined the road to watch.
PHOTO: AFP
Moscow must withdraw its troops from buffer zones surrounding South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, by tomorrow under an agreement brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the wake of the August war between Russia and Georgia.
The pullback may ease tensions somewhat but will not resolve major disputes pitting Russia against Georgia and Western countries, which have condemned Moscow’s invasion of the ex-Soviet republic and its recognition of the separatist regions as independent nations.
A small base at the Russian checkpoint in Karaleti was almost completely dismantled yesterday morning, and two bulldozers leveled ground at the site.
Two armored personnel carriers (APCs) pulled out and headed toward South Ossetia shortly after the chief of Russian peacekeeping troops in the region said the withdrawal had begun.
Speaking at the Karaleti checkpoint, Major General Marat Kulakhmetov said the withdrawal from all six posts on the edge of the buffer zone should be finished by day’s end.
The APCs were followed by two blue light-armored vehicles from the EU mission monitoring the Russian pullout. They were joined by other Russian military vehicles, forming a loose column that headed toward South Ossetia. About a dozen Russian military vehicles crossed into the breakaway region about an hour later.
The concrete slabs that had served as a roadblock at Karaleti were removed on Tuesday.
EU monitors have been patrolling the buffer zone since Oct. 1 under the withdrawal agreement, a supplement to the initial ceasefire Sarkozy brokered on behalf of the EU in August.
The governor of the Georgian region where Karaleti is located, Vladimir Vardezelashvili, said Georgian police would move into the buffer zone as the Russians withdraw.
Black-uniformed police armed with Kalashnikovs stood by, closer to the checkpoint than they had in recent weeks.
The head of the EU monitoring mission, Hansjorg Haber, expressed satisfaction with the Russian moves to withdraw.
“We always proceeded from the assumption that the process would be completed by Friday, and this is confirmation of that assumption,” Haver said by telephone, speaking from the buffer zone outside Abkhazia.
He said he expected Russian forces to withdraw from what he said were 12 checkpoints and a base outside Abkhazia by tomorrow, but probably not by last night.
He confirmed that Georgian law enforcement officers would move into the buffer zones as the Russians withdrew.
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