Posted on 08/26/2008 9:36:56 AM PDT by kronos77
EU leaders have condemned as illegal Russia's decision to recognise the Georgian breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, while Georgian rebels compared the move to the creation of Kosovo earlier this year.
"Georgia's independence and territorial integrity ... cannot be changed by decree from Moscow," UK foreign minister David Miliband said, while announcing he will visit Ukraine on Wednesday to build the "widest possible coalition against Russian aggression."
The French EU presidency called the move "regrettable," while Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini departed from Rome's normally Russia-friendly tone, saying "It's a unilateral decision that doesn't have international support that makes it legally binding."
Nordic states also blasted Moscow, with Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt calling the act a "deliberate violation of international law," and Denmark's Per Stig Moller declaring "unconditional support for Georgia's territorial integrity."
Eastern European capitals lined up in support of Georgia, with the Czech republic in a statement calling Russia's action "an attack on the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia."
With an emergency EU summit on EU-Russia relations tabled for next week, Estonian President Andrus Ansip said NATO should now offer road maps for the membership of both Georgia and Ukraine and called for a break in relations with Russia.
The proposal clashed with Germany, however, with Ms Merkel also saying Europe should maintain contact with its eastern neighbour despite events.
Georgia also reacted furiously. "This is an unconcealed annexation of these territories, which are a part of Georgia," said Georgia's deputy foreign minister, Giga Bokeria.
(Excerpt) Read more at euobserver.com ...
Ping!
Okay Russia, let’s see the bodies of the Ossetians killed by the Georgians.
We are not going to find hundreds like we did in Kosovo where Milosevic was unleashing deadly ethnic cleansing squads.
Russia has no public evidence to support its claims of Georgian Genocide. In fact, they dare not let journalists into Ossetia because it is such a brazen propaganda extension of Moscow’s militarism.
We rubbed their nose in it as pieces of Yugoslavia/Serbia were bitten off. Now that they’re feeling their oats, and they know the west can’t do anything they’re returning the favor.
One benefit might be that the folks refighting the Kosovo war might finally shut up, but I doubt that will happen.
Yugoslavia was never controlled by Moscow.
Tito was a renegade Marxist who refused to let the Soviets interfere with his brand of Communism.
The disintegration of Tito's empire shouldn't upset Russian nationalists at all.
“The disintegration of Tito’s empire shouldn’t upset Russian nationalists at all.”
It sure as hell did - there’s a strong affinity between the russians and the serbs, and Putin and co. were extremely pissed at the west cannibalizing what used to be greater serbia.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0407/p04s01-woeu.html
That's not Russian nationalism, that's Slavic racialism.
And the West, of course, has not "cannibalized" anything.
Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Kosovo and Montenegro are independent countries.
Bosnia remains essentially a protectorate, because the Serbian population of Bosnia formed their own breakway republic of Republika Srpska.
It's bizarre that Serbs who advocate the partitioning of Bosnia along ethnic lines would compain about the partitioning of Serbia along ethnic lines.
If the Republika Srpska can be a de facto independent country with a population of 1.5 million Serbs, Kosovo with a population of 2 million can as well.
“That’s not Russian nationalism, that’s Slavic racialism.”
Call it what you will - by any other name the russians had and have an interest in it, just like we have an interest in keeping Georgia and the other ex soviet republics on our side. It’s the start of a new cold war, or maybe just the continuation of the old.
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