04-22-2008, 05:16 PM
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Banned
Guru
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 11,152
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Russia pulling a Sudetenland in Georgia
Quote:
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Tuesday that a Georgian unmanned reconnaissance flight over the Georgian rebel region of Abkhazia had violated United Nations ceasefire agreements.
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Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the drone had been shot down by separatist forces in Abkhazia -- not a Russian jet as alleged by Tbilisi.
"This flight by the reconnaissance plane ... is a violation of both the Moscow ceasefire and force separation agreement of May 14, 1994, and a corresponding resolution of the United Nations Security Council regarding the mandate of the UN observation mission in Georgia," the ministry said.
The Foreign Ministry said the drone flight took place on Sunday morning but the Georgian Interior Ministry had only informed the United Nations mission about it on Sunday evening.
"Therefore the flight was an unsanctioned military action," the ministry said.
Georgia's allegation on Monday that a Russian jet shot down its drone aggravated tensions between the neighbors which are already at odds over Tbilisi's ambitions to join NATO and Moscow's support for Georgian separatist regions.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili accused Russia of an "act of international aggression" but Russian President Vladimir Putin said Georgia was deliberately fanning tensions in the region by flying reconnaissance flights.
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Quote:
Moscow has granted the vast majority of the region's residents Russian citizenship, and recently lifted 12-year-old trade sanctions against Abkhazia. Russian officials have warned that Georgia will have to abandon its claims on the regions if it joins NATO.
NATO declined to offer Georgia a road map for membership at a summit earlier this month, but assured pro-Western President Mikhail Saakashvili that his nation will eventually join the alliance.
Georgia's U.N. Ambassador Irakli Alasania said Putin's order on April 16 launching full-scale cooperation and formalizing its relations with Abkhazia motivates the separatists "to completely withdraw" from the negotiation process.
"We witness a new dangerous reality," Alasania said. "The Russian Federation is legitimizing annexation of Abkhazia and ... South Ossetia — integral parts of the internationally recognized territory of Georgia."
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080422/...W0tHD2qBt0bBAF
If its allowed to occur..welcome to the 1930's again.
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