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08-24-2008, 12:05 AM
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Second U.S. warship bound for Georgia enters Turkey's Dardanelles
Second of three U.S. Navy warship carrying relief supplies to Georgia entered Sunday Turkey's Canakkale Strait, also known as the Dardanelles. Another U.S. warship arrived in a Georgia's main Black Sea port of Batumi as Russia ignored Western demands to remove its remaining troops from Georgia's heartland.
 The Coast Guard cutter Dallas entered Sunday the Dardanelles; as the U.S. destroyer McFall, which passed through Turkish straits Friday, arrived in Batumi with humanitarian aid. This has been the first U.S. humanitarian mission via the sea to Georgia since the start of the conflict o Aug. 8, when Russia sent forces into Georgia to repel an attack on the Moscow-backed separatist region of South Ossetia that Tbilisi had started the day before. The command ship USS Mount Whitney is due to follow the two U.S. warships to Batumi. The U.S. has already delivered some aid by military cargo plane but is now shipping in beds and food for the displaced. NATO-member Turkey has authorized the three U.S. ships to sail through the Turkish straits into the Black Sea.  RUSSIAN TROOPS STAY Russia says the residual troops are peacekeepers needed to avert further bloodshed and to protect the people of Georgia's separatist, pro-Moscow provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia two days after Moscow said it had wrapped up its withdrawal. The United States and Europe fear the Russian presence in Georgia will cement the country's ethnic partition, undermine the pro-Western government of President Mikheil Saakashvili and threaten vital energy pipelines criss-crossing the country. A loud explosion, heard by a Reuters correspondent west of the town of Gori at the doorsteps of South Ossetia, highlighted persisting tensions. A Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman suggested a train carrying fuel exploded after running on a mine. But there was no independent confirmation to his account. Particularly worrisome for Tbilisi and the West is a checkpoint set up at the port of Poti, which lies outside the security zone Russia says is covered by its peacekeeping mandate and is hundreds of kilometers from South Ossetia.  CHECKPOINTS "Putting up permanent facilities and checkpoints are inconsistent with the (ceasefire) agreement," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe. EU president France, which helped broker the ceasefire, on Saturday urged Kremlin leader Dmitry Medvedev to order Russian forces out of Poti. French President Nicolas Sarkozy "insisted it was important that Russian troops present at the Poti/Senaki area should withdraw as soon as possible," a French statement said. The Kremlin said Sarkozy had given a "positive assessment" of the Russian pullout. The 20 or so Russian soldiers, sporting peacekeeper badges, just smiled and said they did not expect to stay there long. The conflict broke out when Georgia tried to retake South Ossetia. A Russian counter-offensive pushed into Georgia proper, crossing its East-West highway and nearing a Western-backed oil pipeline. They also moved into Western Georgia from Abkhazia, another breakaway region on the Black Sea. Hundreds of people were killed, tens of thousands displaced and housing and infrastructure wrecked in the conflict. Sarkozy's office said he and Medvedev on Saturday had agreed on the urgency of creating an international mechanism under the auspices of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to replace Russian patrols in the buffer zone south of South Ossetia. In a conflicting account, the Kremlin said replacing Russian peacekeepers was not discussed. Russia has earlier said South Ossetians and Abkhazians would only accept Russian peacekeepers. HotNewsTurkey.com Last edited by Turkic Brat; 08-24-2008 at 12:13 AM. Reason: Picture Uploaded 
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