Nato chief in Georgia to show support after war

NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer arrived in Tbilisi to show support for the ex-Soviet state after its war with Russia.

De Hoop Scheffer slammed an EU-brokered deal that let Russian troops stay inside Georgia.

In Brussels, EU foreign ministers were to rubber-stamp an agreement to send at least 200 ceasefire monitors as part of a force that will replace Russian troops in undisputed Georgian territory.

The European Commission will give Georgia up to 500m by 2010 to aid its recovery after it was crushed by Russia, said EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

But underlining differences among Western states over how tough a line to take with Moscow over the conflict, de Hoop Scheffer said the EU-brokered deal gave too much ground by allowing Russian forces to stay in Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions. The Nato secretary general will attend a meeting of the Nato-Georgia commission, intended to bolster ties with the Nato aspirant in the aftermath of the war.

Alliance members are still divided over how quickly Tbilisi should be brought in. Nato’s support for Georgia has incensed the Kremlin.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was demonstrating Moscow’s grip on the region by visiting South Ossetia.

De Hoop Scheffer said an original ceasefire agreement required a return to the status quo before the conflict, but that a September 8 follow-up deal brokered by France did not honour that.

“If the Russians are staying in South Ossetia, I do not consider this as a return to the status quo,” he told the Financial Times.

Russia agreed to pull hundreds of soldiers from “security zones” inside undisputed Georgian territory having pushed deep inside Georgia to repel an assault by Tbilisi to retake South Ossetia from pro-Moscow separatists.

But Moscow plans to station about 7,600 troops — more than twice the pre-war levels — in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, both of which the Kremlin recognised as independent states in the wake of the August war.