* Russian troops still present around Georgian port of Poti
* Moscow accuses NATO of using aid as ‘cover’ for Black Sea build-up

TBILISI: Russian forces were on Saturday still deployed deep inside Georgia but Moscow brushed aside Western accusations it was failing to obey the terms of a ceasefire agreement.

Russia withdrew tanks, artillery and hundreds of troops from the heart of Georgia on Friday, saying it had now fufilled all obligations under a French-brokered ceasefire plan aimed at ending the two-week-old conflict.

Poti port: Russian troops were still present around the western Georgian port of Poti and also controlled a checkpoint 10 kilometres (seven miles) north of the key city of Gori, AFP correspondents said.

Britain, France and the United States have already urged further withdrawals but a top Russian general rejected the Western criticism.

“All activities of the Russian peacekeeping contingent are based on the six principles that were signed in agreement by the presidents of Russia and France,” said General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff in Moscow.

He said Russian troops would patrol and keep control over Poti, Georgia’s main commercial port.

Russian troops first poured into Georgia on August 8 to repel a Georgian assault on the breakaway region of South Ossetia, smashing the country’s small US-trained army.

They then fanned out through Abkhazia, another pro-Moscow breakaway region, and far into the Georgian heartland.

Two Russian armoured vehicles and lorries were Saturday still controlling a checkpoint in the village of Karaleti outside Gori on the road to the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, an AFP correspondent reported.

The troops, whose uniform was marked with the insignia of peacekeepers, were not letting traffic further north without Russian military accreditation.

Russian soldiers backed up by four tanks were still in place on a bridge on the road heading from the western city of Poti to the city of Senaki further west and Batumi to the south.

Black Sea build-up: A top Russian general accused NATO of using humanitarian aid deliveries to Georgia as “cover” for a build-up of naval forces in the Black Sea.

“Under the cover of needing to deliver humanitarian goods, NATO countries continue to boost their naval grouping,” Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of general staff, told a news conference in Moscow.

“In addition to the Spanish and German frigates that entered the Black Sea basin on August 21, yesterday a Polish frigate and a destroyer of the US navy passed the Bosphorous,” he said.

Moscow retains full control of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and says it also has the right to establish an “area of responsibility” far beyond.

“They are still in Poti and there are no signs of their intention to withdraw from there, which is obviously the violation of ceasefire,” Georgian interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP.

Even though Georgian police on Friday retook control of Gori, Moscow claims the right to patrol a sweeping area taking in stretches of the main east-west highway, a trade artery that links the capital Tbilisi to Poti.

Source >  Daily Times

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