August 18, 2008	Monday	Sha'aban 15, 1429

TBILISI, Aug 17: Russia announced on Sunday it would begin withdrawing forces from Georgia on Monday after a war that dealt a humiliating blow to the Black Sea state and raised fears for energy supplies to Europe.

“From tomorrow, Russia will begin the withdrawal of the military contingent which was moved to reinforce Russian peacekeepers after the Georgian aggression against South Ossetia,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, whose failed invasion of the pro-Russian breakaway region triggered a Russian backlash that shocked the West, called for international monitoring of the pullout.

“I think the world should watch,” he told a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Tbilisi. Merkel said that indeed the world would be watching for Russia to withdraw quickly under the terms of a six-point plan brokered by France.

Russia’s Defence Ministry, highlighting continued high tension between the two countries, said Georgia was planning a “major provocative act” in Gori — a city captured by Russian forces on Tuesday as they fanned out from the disputed South Ossetian region into the Georgian heartland.

It gave no details, and Georgia issued a swift denial. “Such provocation would only be staged by the Russian side, with the aim of keeping Russian military units in the conflict zone,” a Georgian ministry said in a statement.

Russian troops remained in position around Gori, which commands the approaches to South Ossetia and the main east-west highway and should be central to covering a Russian withdrawal.

Maj-Gen Vyacheslav Borisov, now a familiar figure touring the area of his command around Gori in a Georgian four-wheel-drive, could not say when he would be moving out.

“We were the first in, so we’ll be the last out,” Borisov said at the roadside near Gori.

There was no sign of shooting and troops appeared relaxed. President Dmitry Medvedev, in announcing the pullout from midday on Monday during a telephone conversation with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, also gave no firm deadline for completion of the withdrawal.

A Georgian official accused Russian forces of destroying Georgian television and radio transmitters in the Gori region and installing their own.

Each side has levelled accusations of attempted genocide against the other. Russia says some 1,600 people were killed in the initial Georgian shelling of the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali while Georgia charges that Russian and irregular forces levelled Georgian villages.

Nato membership

Merkel raised the prospect of Nato membership for Georgia, which as a former Soviet republic had housed Moscow’s frontline radar and missile defences.

“Every free, independent country can together with Nato members discuss when it can join Nato. In December we will have a first evaluation of the situation and we are on a clear path in the direction of Nato membership.”

She said a buffer zone agreed under the ceasefire should not be used by Russia to extend the territory of South Ossetia, which broke with Tbilisi after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. “The security zone cannot be used as an excuse for Russian troops not to leave ... Georgia.”

Russia has made it clear it sees no prospect in the foreseeable future of South Ossetia being reintegrated into Georgia.

Talks are under way to establish international agreement on a peacekeeping force for South Ossetia which seems likely, whatever the Georgian objections, to include a substantial Russian contingent.—Reuters