Posted on 08/11/2008 11:11:31 AM PDT by kronos77
Belgrade, 11 August (AKI) – The deadly conflict between Russia and Georgia in the breakaway province of South Ossetia is an indirect result of Kosovo's declaration of independence in February, Serbian analysts and politicians said on Monday.
“If there wasn’t a ‘Kosovo precedent’, as the greatest world powers headed by the United States called the secession of a part of Serbian territory, there wouldn’t have been a war in South Ossetia,” Oliver Ivanovic, Serbian government official in charge of Kosovo told the Belgrade daily Blic.
Ivanovic said that Kosovo's example was “inspiring to South Ossetia, so they wanted to strain relations and to define their position.”
Georgia wanted to solve the problem of separatist South Ossetia by the use of force, just like Serbia had tried to do in Kosovo in 1999, he explained. .. Commentator Dragan Petrovic told Tanjug news agency that the United States had encouraged a conflict between Russia and Georgia to strengthen its influence in the region.
“The Americans want to drive a wedge between Georgia and Russia to improve their position in the area because of an oil pipeline, future actions against Iran, to isolate pro-Russian Armenia and to encourage the aspirations of the Muslim population in the North Caucasus,” Petrovic said.
Former Serbian foreign minister Goran Svilanovic said he now saw Georgia as a “Russian sphere of interest”.
He said it will soon “become clear to everyone in Russia, Georgia and the countries in the region”.
(Excerpt) Read more at adnkronos.com ...
It seems that Russia has North Ossetia and Georgia as South Ossetia. Russia is willing to cooperate with the North and South getting together to form their own country but Georgia is not cooperating. Regardless of history, it seems the Georgians are in the wrong here. They should cooperate with North Ossetia and South Ossetia forming their own country. Am I wrong?
So you support the US stealing sovereign land and allowing the locals to burn churches to the ground. Thanks for the clarification.
Historically, the land has been part of Georgia for centuries. The Ossetic people migrated into Georgia from their homeland to escape the Mongols. A lot of people are claiming that this is an artifact of Stalin's regime and that the land is not historically Georgian. They are mistaken.
South Ossetia isn't a breakaway republic. It is a couple of towns.
Serbia must be laughing their *ss off today as I’m sure they see this as divine retribution.
While I am sure Serbian ultranationalists are indeed getting their jollies from watching their Russian husbands murder Georgians, I'm not sure why the Georgians deserve it - even by the twisted logic the Serbian Radical Party specializes in.
There is a difference between what the US did in Kosovo and what Putin is doing in Georgia.
Putin, at least, has the excuse that he is invading a foreign country and killing innocent civilians for selfish reasons—because he wants to expand Russia’s control over its former empire and control the oil, which in turn gives him control over Europe, which he can now threaten to let freeze in the dark.
Clinton had no such excuse. He attacked our allies, killed our friends, and handed Kosovo over to our enemies, drug smuggling Muslim terrorists. And, for whatever reason, Bush has signed on to it.
Both these invasions were criminal enterprises, but at least Putin has the excuse that he leads the Russian Mafia and expects to make a big profit on the deal.
What’s Bush’s excuse? Backing the theft of Kosovo from Serbia not only was evil, it was stupid, and flatly against our national security interests.
LOL!
Their "own country"?
More than 90% of the Ossetians live in North Ossetia - which is part of Russia and is not an independent state.
If Russia really wanted to see an independent Ossetian state, they could let the Ossetians in Russia declare their independence. But, oddly, they don't.
450,000 Ossetians in Russia are apparently not enough to form a state, but the addition of 45,000 Ossetians in Georgia will magically make them large enough to form a self-sustaining state?
Please.
Russia calling for Georgia to allow an independent Ossetian state is like Spain calling on France to allow an independent Basque republic.
The population of Kosovo is 2.1 million. The population of South Ossetia is maybe 50,000 Ossetians and 30,000 Georgians.
South Ossetia isn’t a breakaway republic. It is a couple of towns.
It was already treated as an autonomous region within Georgia. It wants to break away, a couple of towns or not. Which leads to the point I made on another thread. How many breakaways can any given country allow? And I used as an example, Czechoslovakia, which was tiny to begin with and then split in two to create two mini countries. So, you can call it what you want to, it is still a breakaway republic, or is attempting to be one. Funny though how Russia supports this, but won’t allow Chechnya to break away. Just a tad hypocritical.
This is my take on it as well.
If the West is going to surround Russia with Muslim terrorist nations, the Russians are going to have to fix things themselves.
Georgia cancelled its aouthonomy after Georgia independance.
So does he also see Serbia as a US sphere of interest? That would be the natural assumption if the analogous nature of the two are correct as per this article.
Only one problem with your argument. In the case of Kosovo it was Clinton who was the tyrant. If Putin is a tyrant towards Georgia now, Clinton was certainly a tyrant towards Serbia then. Just because a given politician leads the US doesn't mean they can’t be a tyrant. It doesn't automatically excuse every tyrannical action they do.
“Stalin, that infamous Georgian, who hated Russians, inserted it into Georgia. Who knows why, border hijinks in the old USSR.”
He was born in South Osetia .
The Czech Republic is as big as Portugal - a territory the size of South Carolina and a population as large as Ohio's.
Slovakia is as big as Switzerland and has a population larger than Ireland or Finland or Norway - a territory almost the size of West Virginia and a population as large as Wisconsin's. Smaller Kosovo - which is still much larger than either Slovenia or Montenegro - is the size of Massachusetts with a population larger than New Mexico.
The area controlled by "The Republic Of South Ossetia" with Russia's help is smaller than the New Jersey county I live in. Its population is half the size of the population of the suburban township I live in.
At a certain level it becomes farcical - and "The Republic Of South Ossetia" is way below that threshhold.
“450,000 Ossetians in Russia are apparently not enough to form a state, but the addition of 45,000 Ossetians in Georgia will magically make them large enough to form a self-sustaining state?”
That is an excellent point.
If you have been to Kosovo and still agree that what Clinton and his NATO allies did to Serbia was right then you must be either an Albanian or a socialist because those are the only two groups who can twist logic so severely as to justify that.
You nailed it right there...the world continues to reap from a continuation of the flawed policies of Clinton............case closed.....no need to go any further.....you wrote a great commentary.
Too much. I didn’t know that. No wonder as a Georgian in Ossetia he may have harbored some really nasty feelings towards Russians.
And yes, they did steal Serbian land and handed it over to criminals who harvested organs, burnt down churches and systematically murdered people. Thank you for supporting such activities.
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