Georgia talks 'collapse'

A senior Western diplomat says talks with Russia have collapsed on the sensitive issue of sending additional international monitors to keep tabs on South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The official told The Associated Press that Moscow’s refusal to approve 80 extra military monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe has thrown into question the sincerity of Russia’s pledge to withdraw its troops from key areas of Georgia later this month.

The diplomat, who has been involved in the negotiations, said Russia took an increasingly “hardline” stance. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss details with reporters.

He said the talks collapsed today at OSCE headquarters in Vienna.

“It has become clear that Russia doesn’t want any agreement. I think they’re afraid of what the observers will see,” the diplomat said.

“The talks have collapsed and there are no further discussions underway,” he added.

The Vienna-based OSCE, Europe’s largest security organisation, now has a total of 28 monitors in Georgia. It has been trying to boost that presence to 100 in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion last month, which came after Georgia attacked separatist South Ossetia.

But efforts to get Russia to agree on terms of the observers’ deployment have bogged down over the central question of whether the unarmed military monitors would be allowed inside the two contested regions.

“For three weeks now, we have been fighting on how to deploy these extra 80 monitors without delay,” the Western official said. “Everyone but Russia has said they should be able to get into all of Georgia, including South Ossetia.”

Confidential OSCE documents obtained by the AP detail how Russian forces allegedly have restricted the monitors’ movements.

“The freedom of movement of the OSCE military monitoring officers ... has been hindered and conditioned,” said one document, issued yesterday.

Another report, from today, said all 28 observers “continue to encounter difficulties in their movement to most of the areas of their deployment”.

“They are denied access to South Ossetia by the Russian Armed Forces deployed in the southern part of the area ... They are now also denied access to the Akhalgori district by South Ossetian armed personnel deployed along the administrative border of South Ossetia, where access had been previously granted,” it said.

Nato’s leader said today he will send a delegation to Georgia next week to show the alliance’s support after Russia used “disproportionate force” in attacking the small country.

Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who will be accompanied by the ambassadors of all 26 members of the alliance, said the group will meet with the government, opposition members and aid organisations.

The visit, on September 15-16, is “to show our support for Georgia after what we have seen from the Russian side,” Mr de Hoop Scheffer told reporters in Latvia.

“We have our fundamental differences with the Russian federation. We had them already before they were embarking on disproportionate force in Georgia ... but we do not consider Russia a threat,” Mr de Hoop Scheffer said, after talks with president Valdis Zatlers in the Latvian capital.

Earlier today, he met with the foreign ministers of the three Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania in Riga.

The Nato delegation is scheduled to meet with Georgian officials in the capital, Tbilisi, and also visit the Georgian city of Gori, which was targeted by Russian jets and tanks during the war.

An estimated 192,000 people were uprooted in the August fighting over South Ossetia, but 68,000 have returned home, the UN refugee agency said today.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees revised its figure upward from 158,000 people it previously said were displaced by the fighting between Georgia, Russia and South Ossetian rebel forces last month.

The new figures are based on better counting, UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said.

Some 23,000 will need shelter over the winter before they can return to their houses, which will be rebuilt next year, he said.

“The remaining 31,000 individuals are not expected to return in the foreseeable future,” Mr Redmond told reporters. These people from South Ossetia, from the so-called buffer zone held by Russian forces south of the province and from Abkhazia, he said.